
SVEKCII 




MR. IIOllACE MANN, 



THE RIGHT OF CONCillESS TO LEfUSIATE 



FOH TIIK 



TERRITOIIIES OF THE UNITED STATES, § 



.VNI) 



3t0 JDutn to igjfclubc Slaucnj €l)cvcfvom. 



DELIVERED IN THE IIOL'SE OF KEI'KESENTATIVES, 
IN COJIAU'lTKE OF TIIK WllULE, JUNE 30, 1848. 




REVISED EDITION 



BOSTON: 

WILLIAM B. FOWLE. 



1848. 




lio/r/i 



•x* S P E E C II 



OF 

MR. HORACE MANN, 

OF MASSACHUSETTS, 

I\ THE HOUSE OF REPRESEMATIVES OF THE UNITED STATES, JUNE 30, 1848, 

ON THE RIGHT OF CONGRESS TO LEGISIATE FOR THE TERRITORIES OF THE 
UNITED STATES, AND ITS DUTY TO EXCLUDE SLAVERY THEREFROM. 



Mr. Chairman : I have listened with interest, both yesterday and tn-day, 
to speeches on what is called the "Presidential Question." I propose to 
fli'sonss a question of far greater magnitude, — the question of the age, — one 
whosfe consequences will not end with the ensuing four years, but will reach 
forward to the setting of the sun of time. 

Sir, our position is this : The United States finds itself the owner of a vast 
region -^f country at the West, now almost vacant of inhabitants. Parts of 
Ou.. region are salubrious and fertile. We have reason to suppose, that, in 
addition to the treasures of wealth which industry may gather from its sur- 
face, there are mineral treasures beneath it, — riches garnered up of old in 
subterranean chambers, and only awaiting the application of intelligence and 
skill to be converted into the means of human improvement and happiness. 
These regions, it is true, lie remote from our place of residence. Their shores 
are washed by another sea, and it is no figure of speech to say that another 
sky bends over them. So remote are they, that their hours are not as our 
hours, nor their day as our day ; and yet, such are the wonderful improve- 
ments in art, in modern times, as to make it no rash anticipation, that, before 
this century shall have closed, the inhabitants on the Atlantic shores will be 
able to visit their brethren on the Pacific in ten days; and that intelligence 
will be transmitted and returned between the Eastern and the Western oceans 
in ten minutes. That country, therefore, will be rapidly tilled, and we shall 
be brought into intimate relations with it, and, notwithstanding its distance, 
into proximity to it. 

Now, in the providence of God, it has fallen to our lot to legislate for this 
unoccupied, or but partially occupied, expanse. Its great Future hangs upon 
our decision. Not only degrees of latitude and longitude, but vast tracts of 
time, — ages and centuries, — seem at our disposal. As are the institutions 
which we form and establish there, so will be the men whom these institutions, 
in their turn, will form. Nature works by fixed laws ; but we can bring this 
or that combination of circumstances under the operation of her laws, and 
thus determine results. Here springs up our responsibility. One class of 
institutions will gather there one class of men, who will develop one set of 
characteristics ; another»class of institutions will gather there another class 
of men, who will develop other characteristics. Hence, their futurity is to 
depend upon our present course. Hence, the acts we are to perform seem to 
partake of the nature of creation, rather than of legislation. Standing upon 
the elevation which we now occupy, and looking over into that empty world, 
"yet void," if not "without form," but soon to be filled with midtinidinous 
life, and reflecting upon our power to give form and character to that lite, and 
almost to foreordain what it shall be, I feel as though it would be no irrever- 



ence to compare our condition to that of the Creator before he fashioned the 
" lord " of this lower world ; for we, like Him, can ingraft one set of attributes, 
or another set of attributes, upon a whole race of men. In approaching- this 
subject, therefore, I feel a sense of responsibility corresponding to the infinite, 
— I speak literally, — the infinite interests which it embraces. 

As far as the time allowed me will permit, I propose to discuss two ques- 
tions. The first is — " Whether Congress can lawfidhj legislate on the subject 
of slavery in the Territories." 

On this question a new and most extraordinary doctrine has lately been 
broached. A new reading of the Constitution has been discovered. It is 
averred that the 3d section of the 4th article, giving Congress power " to 
dispose of, and make all needful rules and regulations respecting the territory 
or other property belonging to the United States," only gives power to legislate 
for the land as land. It is admitted that Congress may legislate for the land 
as land, — geologically or botanically considered, — perhaps for the beasts that 
roam upon its surface, or the fishes that swim in its Avaters ; but it is denied 
that Congress possesses any power to determine the laws and the institutions 
of those who shall inhabit that " land." 

But compare this with any other object of purchase or possession. When 
Texas was admitted into the Union, it transferred its "navj'" to the United 
States; in other words, the United States bought, and of course owned, the 
navy of Texas. What power had Congress over this navy, after the pur- 
chase ? According to the new doctrine, it could pass laws for the hull, the 
masts, and the sails of the Texan ships, but would have no power to navigate 
them by officers and men. It might govern the ships as so much wood, iron, 
and cordage, but would have no authority over commanders or crews. 

But we are challenged to show any clause in the Constitution which confers 
an express power to legislate over the Territories we possess. I challenge our 
opponents to show any clause which confers express power to acquire those 
territories themselves. If, then, the power to acquire exists, it exists by impli- 
cation and inference ; and if the power to acquire be an implied one, the power 
to govern ivJuit is acquired must be implied also. For, for what purpose does 
any man acquire property but to govern and control it ? What does a buyer 
pay for, if it be not the right to "dispose of?" Such is the doctrine of the 
Supreme Court of the United States : " The right to govern," says Chief 
Justice Marshall, " may be the inevitable consequence of the right to acquire." 
Amer. Lis. Co. vs. Ca7iter, 1 Peters, 542. See also McCullough vs. Maryland, 
4 Wfieat., 422. TJie Cherokee Nation vs. Geoi-gia, 5 Peters, 44. United States 
vs. Gratiot, 14 Peters, 537. 

But I refer to the express words of the Constitution, as ample and effective 
in conferring all the power that is claimed. " Congress may dispose of, and 
make all needful rules and regulations," &c. If Congress may " dispose of" 
this land, then it may sell it. Inseparable from the right to sell is the right 
to define the terms of sale. The seller may affix such conditions and limita- 
tions as he pleases to the thing sold. If this be not so. then the buyer may 
dictate his terms to the seller. Answer these simple questions : Supposing 
the United States to own land in fee-simple, then, is the government under 
guardianship, or disabled by minority? Is it compos mentis? If none of 
these disabilities apply to it, then it may sell. It may sell the fee-simple, or 
it may carve out any lesser estate, and sell that. It may incorporate such 
terms and conditions as it pleases into its deed or patent of sale. It may 
make an outright quit-claim, or it may reserve the minerals for its own use, 
or the navigable streams for public highways, as it has done in the territory 
north-west of the river Ohio. It may insert the conditions and limitations in 
each deed or patent; or, where the grantees arc numerous, it may make 
geneml " rules and regulations," which are understood to be a part of each 
contract, and are therefore binding upon each purchaser. No man is com- 
pelled to buy ; but if any one does buy, he huys suhject to the " rules and 
regulations " expressed in the grants ; und neither he, nor his grantees, nor 
his or their heirs after them, can complain. I want, therefore, no better foun- 



dation for legislating over tlio Territories tliaii the fact of o\viit'rhlii|) in the 
United States. Grant tliis, and all is granted, if I own a farm, or a .sliop, I 
may, as owner, prescribe the conditions of its transfer to an(jilier. If he does 
not like my conditions, tluni let him ahanilon tlie negotialiim ; if he accedes 
to the conditions, then let him ahide hy them, and ludd liis jicace. 

Sir, in the State to whicli I belong, we hold Tem|)erance to be a great 
blessing, as well as a great virtue; and Intemperance to be a great curse, as 
well as a great sin. 1 know of incorporated companies there, who have pur- 
chased large tracts of land for manulacturing purposes. They well know 
how essential is the sobriety of workmen to the prutitableness of their work ; 
they know, too, how wasteful and destructive is inebriety. In disposing of 
their land, therefore, to the men whom they would gather about then^and 
employ, they incorporate the provision, as a fundamental article in the deed 
of grant, that ardent spirits shall never be sold upon the premises; and thus 
they shut up, at once, one of the most densely thronged gateways of hell. 
Have they not a right to do so, from the mere fact of ownership ? Would 
any judge or lawyer doubt the validity of such a condition ; or would any 
sensible man ever doubt its wisdom or humanity ? Pecuniarily and morally, 
this comes under the head of" needful rules and regulations." ' If tipplers do 
not like them, let them stagger away, and seek their residence elsewhere. 

But the United States is not merely a land-owner; it is a Sovereignty. 
As such, it e.xercises all constitutional jurisdiction over all its Territories. 
Whence, but from this right of sovereignty, does the Government obtain its 
power of saying that no man shall purchase land of the natives, or aborigines ; 
and that, if you wish to buy land in the Territories, you shall comelo the 
Government for it ? Is there any express power in the Constitution author- 
izing Congress to say to all the citizens of the United States, "If you wish 
to buy ungranted land in the Territories, you must come to us, for no one else 
can sell, or shall sell ?"' This right, sustained by all our legislation and adju- 
dications, covers the whole ground. Lessee of Johnson ct al. vs. Mcintosh, 8 
Wheaton, 543; 5 Cond. Re., 515. 

But, leaving the Constitution, it is denied that there are precedents. The 
honorable gentleman from Virginia [Mr. Bayly] has not only contested the 
power of Congress to legislate on the subject of slavery in the Territories, 
but he has denied the existence of precedents to sustain this power. Sir, it 
would have been an assertion far less bold, to deny the existence of prece- 
dents for the election of a President of the United States ; for the instances 
of the latter have been far less frequent than of the former. Congress has 
legislated on the subject of slavery in the Territories all the way up, from the 
adoption of the Constitution to the present time ; and this legislation has been 
sustained by the judiciary of both the General and State Governments, and 
carried into execution by the Executive power of both. See Menard vs. As- 
pasta, 5 Peters, 505 ; Phebe et al. vs. Jay, Breese's Re., 210 ; Ho^g vs. the 
Za7iesville CanaJ. Co., 5 Ohio Re., 410 ; Martins Louisiana Re., N. S. 699 ; 
Spooner vs. McConnell, 1 McLeans Re., 341 ; Harvey vs. Decker, Walker's 
Mississippi Re., 36 ; Rachael vs. Walker, 4 Missouri Re., 350. 

So far as the uniform practice of sixty years can settle a doubtful, or con- 
firm an admitted right, this power of legislating over the Territories has been 
taken from the region of doubt, and established upon the basis of acknowl- 
edged authority. In legislating for all that is now Ohio, Indiana. Illinois, 
Wisconsin, Michigan, Iowa, Missouri, Arkansas, Mississippi, Louisiana, and 
Florida, we have legislated on the subject of slavery in the Territories. Sixty 
years of legislation on one side, and not a denial of the right on the other. 

But the gentleman from Virginia [Mr. Bayly] says, that the action of Con- 
gress, in regard to the Territories, has been rather that of constitution-making 
than of law-making. Suppose this to be true ; does not the irreater include 
the less ? If Congress could make a constitution for all the Territories, — an 
organic, fundamental law, — a law of laws, — could it not, had it so pleased, 
make the law itself? A constitution prescribes to the legislature what it shall 
do, and what it shall not do ; it commands, prohibits, and binds men by oaths 



to support itself. It says, " Hitherto shalt thou come, and no further." And 
if Congress can do this, can it not make the local law itself? Can aught be 
more preposterous ? As if we could command others to do what we have no 
right to do ourselves, and prohibit others from doing Avhat lies beyond our 
own jurisdiction. Surely, to decree on what subjects a community shall leg- 
islate, and on what they shall not legislate, is the exercise of the highest 
power. 

But Congress has not stopped with the exer'-.ise of the constitution-making 
power. In various forms, and at all times, it has legislated for the Territo- 
ries, in the strictest sense cf the word legislation. It has legislated again 
and again, and ten times again, on this very subject of slavery. See the act 
of 1794, prohibiting the slave trade from " any port or place" in the United 
States. Could any citizen of the United States, under this act, liave gone 
into one of our Territories and there have fitted out vessels for the slave trade ? 
Surely he could, if Congress had no right to legislate over Territories only 
as so much land and water. 

By statute 1798, chapter 28, § 7, slaves were forbidden to be brought 
into the Mississippi Territory from without the United States, and all slaves 
so brought in wei-e made free. 

So the act of 1800, chapter 51, in further prohibition of the slave trade, 
applied to all citizens of the United States, whether living in Territories or 
in organized States. Did not this legislation cover the Territories ? 

By statute 1804, chapter 3S, ^ 10, three classes of slaves were forbidden to 
be introduced into the Orleans Territory. 

Statute 1807, chapter 22, prohibiting the importation o^ slaves after Janu- 
ary 1, 1808, prohibited their importation into the Territories in express terms. 
Statute 1818, chapter 91, statute 1819, chapter 101, and statute 1820, chap- 
ter 113, prohibiting the slave trade, and making it piracy, expressly included 
all the Territories of the United States. 

Statute 1819, chapter 21, authorized the President to provide, for the 
safe-keeping of slaves imported from Africa, and for their removal to their 
home in that land. Under this law, the President might have established a 
depot for slaves within the limits of our Territories, on the Gulf, or on the 
Mississippi. 

By statute 1820, chapter 22, ^ 8, Congress established what has been called 
the Missouri compromise line, thereby expressly legislating on the subject of 
slavery. So of Texas. See Jo. Res. March 1, 1845. 

By statute 1819, chapter 93. statute 1821, chapter 39, ^ 2, and statute 1822, 
chapter 13, ^ 9, Congress legislated on the subject of slavery in the Territory 
of Florida. 

Does it not seem almost incredible that a defender and champion of slavery 
should deny the power of Congress to legislate on the subject of slavery in 
the Territories ? If Congress has no such power, by what right can a master 
recapture a fugitive slave escaping into a Territory ? The Constitution says : 
" No person held to service, or labor, in one State, escaping into another," — 
that is, another State, — "shall be discharged from such service, or labor," 
&c. The act of 1793, chapter 7, ^ 3, provides that when a person " held to 
labor," &c., " shall escape into any other of the said States, or Territory," 
he may be taken. By what other law than this can a runaway slave be re- 
taken m a Territory? If Congress has no power to legislate on the subject 
of slavery in any Territory, then, surely, it cannot legislate for the capture 
of a fugitive slave in a Territory. The argument cuts both ways. The 
knife wounds him who would use it to wound his fellow. 

Further than this. If slavery is claimed to be one of the common subjects 
of legislation, then any legislation by Congress for the Territories, on any of 
the common subjects of legislation, is a precedent, going to prove its right to 
legislate on slavery itself. If Congress may legislate on one subject belong- 
ing to a class, then it may legislate on any other subject belonging to the 
same class. Now, Congress has legislated for the Territories on almost the 
whole circle cf subjects belonging to common legislation. It has legislated 



on the elective franchise, on the pecuniary qualifications and residence of 
candidates for ofTice, on the militia, on oaths, on the j/erdirm and niilcatre of 
menihers, ice. Sec. By statute ISll, chapter 21, ^ 'i, aiitliori/ing- the T'-rri- 
tory of Orleans to form a constitution, it was provided that all leq-islativc pro- 
ceedinfrs and judicial records should be kept and pronnil<:^;it<'d in the Einjlish 
language. Cannot Congress make provision for the rights of the people, ns 
Weil as for the language in which the laws and records defining those ritrhts 
shall be expressed ? Any language is sweet to the ears of man whii-h jyives 
him the right of trial by jury, of habeas corpus, of religious freedom, and of 
life, limb, and liberty ; but accursed is that language, and fit only for the 
realms below, which deprives an intmortal being of the rights of intelliLffnco 
and of freedom ; of the right to himself, and the dearer rights of familv. 

But all this is by no means the strongest part of the evidence with which 
our statutes and judicial decisions abound, showing the power of Congress 
to legislate over Territories. From the beginning, Congress has not only 
legislated over the Territories, but it has appointed and controlled the agents 
of legislation. 

The general structure of the Legislature in several of the earlier Terri- 
torial Governments was this : It consisted of a Governor and of two Houses, 
un upper and a lower. Without an exception, where a Governor has been 
appointed, Congress has always reserved his appointment to itself, or to the 
President. The Governor so appointed has always had a veto power over 
the two Houses; and Congress has always reserved to itself, or to the Presi- 
dent, a veto power, not only over him, but over him and both the Houses 
besides. Congress has often interfered also with the appointment of the 
upper House, leaving only the lower House to be chosen exclusively by the 
people of the Territory ; and it has determined even for the lower House the 
qualifications both of electors and of elected. Further still : The power of 
removing the Governor, at pleasure, has always been reserved to Congress, 
or to the President. 

Look at this: Congress determines for the Territory the qualifications of 
electors and elected, — at least in the first instance. No law of the Territorial 
Legislature is valid until approved by the Governor. Though approved by 
the Governor, it may be annulled by Congress, or by the President ; and the 
Governor is appointed, and may be removed at pleasure, by Congress or by 
the President. 

To be more specific, I give the following outline of some of the Territorial 
Governments : 

Ohio Territonj, statute 1789, chapter 8. — A governor for four years, nom- 
inated by the President, approved Ijy the Senate, with power to appoint all 
subordinate civil and military officers. 

A Secretary for four years, appointed in the same way. 

Three Judges, to hold ofhce during good behavior. Governor and Judges 
the sole Legislature, until the district shall contain 5,000 free male inhabitants. 
Then, 

A House of Assembly, chosen by qualified electors, for two years. 

A Legislative Council of five, to hold office for five years. The House of 
Assembly to choose ten men, five of whoni are to be selected by the Presi- 
dent and approved by the Senate. These five to be the " Legislative Coun- 
cil." 

A Governor, as before, with an unconditional veto, and a right to convene, 
prorogue, and dissolve the Assembly. 

Power given to the President to revoke the commissions of Governor and 
Secretary. 

Indiana Territonj, statute ISOO, chapter 41. — Similar to that of Ohio. 
At first the lower House to consist of not more than nine, nor less than seven. 

Mississippi Territory, statute ISOO, chapter 50. — Similar to that of Indiana. 

Michigan Terr itoi-y, statute 1805, chapter, 5. — Similar to that of Indiana. 

Illinois Territory, statute 1809, chapter 13. — Similar to tliat of Indiana. 

Alabama. Territory, statute 1S17, cluiptcr 59. — Similar to that of Indiana. 



6 

(Viscoiis'ni Terrltor]/, statute 1S36, chapter 5-1. — Governor for three years, 
appointed as above, and removable by the President, with powder to appoint 
officers and grant pardons. Unconditional veto. 

Secretary for four years, removable by the President. In the absence, or 
during the inability, of the Governor, to perform his duties. 

Legislative Assembly to consist of a Council and a House of Representa- 
tives, to be chosen for two years. Congress to have an unconditional veto, 
to be exercised on laws approved by the Governor. 

Louisiana Territory, statute 1803, chapter 1. — Sole dictatorial power given 
to the President of the United States ; and the army and navy of the United 
States placed at his command to govern the territorial inhabitants. — (This 
was under Mr. Jefferson, a strict constructionist.) 

Territory of Orleans, statute 1804, chapter 38. — Governor nominated by 
the President, approved by the Senate, tenure of office three years. Remov- 
able by the President. Secretary for four years, to be Governor in case, &c. 
Legislative Council of thirteen, to be annually appointed by the President. 
Governor and Council, of course, a reciprocal negative on each other. 
Congress an unconditional veto on both. 

District of Louisiana, statute 1804, chapter 38. — To be governed by the 
Governor and Judges of the Territory of Indiana. 
Congress an unconditional veto on all their laws. 

Missouri Territory, statute 1812, chapter 95, — A Governor, appointable 
and removable as above. 
Secretary, the same. 

A Legislative Council of nine. Eighteen persons to be nominated by the 
House of Representatives for the Territory ; nine of these to be selected and 
ajipointed by the President and Senate. A House of Representatives to be 
chosen by the people. 

Arkaiisas Territory, statute 1819, chapter 49. — A Governor and Secretary, 
appointable and removable, as above. 

All legislative power vested in the Governor and in the judges of the supe- 
rior court. 

When a majority of the freeholders should elect, then they might adopt 
the form of government of Missouri. 

East and West Florida, statute 1S19, chapter 93. — Statute 1821, chapter 
oc). — Statute 1822, chapter 13. — From March 3, 1819, to March 30, 1822, 
the Government vested solely in the President of the United States, and to 
be exercised by such officers as he should appoint. 

After March 30, 1822, a Governor and Secretary appointable and remova- 
ble as above. 

All legislative power vested in the Governor, and in thirteen persons, called 
a Legislative Council, to be appointed annually by the President. 

Yet, sir, notwithstanding all this legislation of Congress for the Territories, 
on the subject of slavery itself; notwithstanding its legislation on a great class 
of subjects of which slavery is acknowledged to be one; notwithstanding its 
appointment in some cases, of the legislative power of the Territory, — making 
its own agent, the Governor, removable at pleasure, — giving him a veto in the 
first place, and reserving to itself a veto when he has approved ; notwithstand- 
ing the exercise, in other cases, of full, absolute sovereignty over the inhab- 
itants of the Territories, and all their interests ; and, notwithstanding such 
has been the practice of the Government for sixty years, under Jefferson, 
Madison, Monroe, Jaclcson, and others, it is now denied that Congress has 
any right to legislate on the subject of slavery in the Territories. Sir, with 
a class of politicians in this country, it has come to this, that slavery is the 
only sacred thing in existence. It is self-existent, like a god, and human 
power cannot prevent it. From year to year, it goes on conquering and to 
conquer, and human power cannot dethrone it. 

Sir, I will present another argument on this subject, and I do not see how 
any jurist or statesman can invalidate it. 

Government is one, but its functions are several. They are legislative, 



judicial, cxocutive. These functions arc coiirdinalc ; each supposes the other 
two. There nuist be a legislature to enact laws ; there must be a judiciary 
to expound the laws enacted, and point out the individuals apainst whom 
they are to be enforced ; there must be an executive arm to enforce the decis- 
ions of the courts. In every theory of government, where one of these exists, 
the others exist. Under our Constitution they are divided into three parts, 
and apportioned amonc;- three coordinate bodies. Whoever denies one of 
these must deny them all. 

If the Government of the United States, therefore, has no right to legislate 
for the Territories, it has no right to adjudicate for the Territories ; if it has 
no right to adjudicate, then it has no right to enforce the decisions of the 
judicial tribunals. These rights must stand or fall together. He who takes 
from this Government the law-making power, in regard to Territories, strikes 
also the balances of justice from the hands of the judge, and the mace of 
authority from those of the executive. There is no escape from this conclu- 
sion. The Constitution gives no more authority to adjudge suits in the Ter- 
ritories, or to execute the decisions of the Territorial courts, than it does to 
legislate. If Congress has no power over territory, only as land, then what 
does this land want of judges and marshals ? Is it not obvious, then, that 
this new reading of the Constitution sets aside the w^hole legislative, judicial, 
and e.xecutive administration of this Government over Territories, since the 
adoption of the Constitution ? It makes the whole of it invalid. The Pres- 
idents, all members of Congress, all judges upon the bench, have been in a 
dream for the last sixty years, and are now waked up and recalled to their 
senses by the charm of a newly discovered reading of the Constitution. 

Hitherto, sir, I have not directed my remarks to the actual legislation by 
Congress, on the subject of slavery in the Northwestern Territory, so called. 
That territory was consecrated to freedom by the ordinance of 17S7. It has 
been said that the Confederation had no power to pass such an ordinance. 
One answer to this is, that the ordinance was a " compact," in terms, and so 
was adopted and ratified by the sixth article of the Constitution, under the 
term " engagement." 

But whatever may be thought of this answer, there is another one which is 
conclusive. Congress has ratified the ordinance again and again. The first 
Congress at its first session passed an act whose preamble is as follows : 
" Whereas, in order that the ordinance of the United States, in Cono-ress 
assembled, for the government of the territory northwest of the river Ohio, 
may continue to have full effect," &c. It then proceeds to modify some 
parts of the ordinance, and to adopt all the rest.*" 

In the 2d section of the act of ISOO, chapter 41, establishing the Indiana 
Territory, it is expressly provided that its government shall be "in all respects 
similar to that provided by the ordinance of 1787." 

In the act of 1S02, chapter 40, section 5, authorizing Ohio to form a con- 
stitution and State government, this ordinance of 1787 is three times referred 
to as a valid and existing engagement ; and it has always been held to be so 
by the courts of Ohio. 

So in the act of 1S16, chapter 57, section 4, authorizing the erection of 
Indiana into a State, the ordinance is again recognized, and is made a part 
of the fundamental law of the State. 

So in the act of ISIS, chapter 67, section 4, authorizing Illinois to become 
a State. 

So in the act of 1S05, chapter 5, section 2, establishing the Territory of 
Michigan. 

So of Wisconsin. See act of 1847, chapter 53, in connection with the 
constitution of Wisconsin. 

But all this is tedious and superfluous. I have gone into this detail, 
because I understand the gentleman from Virginia [Mr. Bayly] to have 

* Mr. Madison thought the original ordinance to be clearly invalid. See Federalist, No. 33. 
It IS just as clear that be thought the Constitution gave validity to it. See Federalist, No. 43. 



denied this adoption and these recognitions of the ordinance. I hazard noth- 
ing in saying that the ordinance of 17S7 lias been expressly referred to as 
valid, or expressly or impliedly reenacted, a dozen times, by the Congress of 
the United States ; and, in the State courts of Ohio, Illinois, Louisiana, Mis- 
sissippi, and Missouri, it has been adjudged to be constitutional. How, then, 
is it possible for any mind amenable to legal rules for the decision of legal 
questions, to say that Congress cannot legislate, or has not legislated, (except 
once or twice inadvertently,) on the subject of slavery in the Territories ? 

On this part of the argument, I have only a concluding remark to submit. 
The position I am contesting affirms generally that Congress cannot legislate 
upon the subject of slavery in the Territories. The inexpediency of so leg- 
islating is further advocated, on the ground that it is repugnant to Democrat- 
ical principles to debar the inhabitants of the Territories from governing 
themselves. Must the free men of the Territories, it is asked, have laws 
made for them by others ? No ! It is anti-democratic, monarchical, intoler- 
able. All men have the right of self-government ; and this principle holds 
true with regard to the inhabitants of Territories, as well as the inhabitants 
of States. 

Now, if these declarations were a sincere and honest affirmation of human 
rights, I should respect them and honor their authors. Did this doctrine 
grow out of a jealousy for the rights of man, a fear of usurpation, an asser- 
tion of the principle of self-government, I should sympathize with it, while I 
denied its legality. But, sir, it is the most painful aspect of this whole case, 
that the very object and purpose of claiming these ample and sovereign rights 
for the inhabitants of the Territories, is, that they may deny all rights to a 
portion of their fellow-beings within them. Enlarge, aggrandize thf rights 
of the Territorial settlers ! And why ? Because, by so doing, you enable 
them to abolish all rights for a whole class of human beings. This claim, 
then, is not made for the purpose of making freemen more free, but for 
making slaves more enslaved. The reason for denying to Congress the power 
to legislate for the Territories, is the fear that Congress will prevent slavery 
in them. The reason for claiming the supreme right of legislation for the 
Territorial inhabitants, is the hope that they Avill establish slavery within 
their borders. Must not that Democracy be false, which begets slavery as its 
natural offspring? 

If it has now been demonstrated that Congress has uniformly legislated, 
and can legislate, on the subject of slavery in the Territories, I proceed to 
consider the next question. 75 it expedieyit to exclude slavery from thcni 1 

Here, on the threshold, we are confronted with the claim that the gates 
shall be thrown wide open to the admission of slavery into the broad western 
world; because, otherwise, the southern or slave States would be debarred 
from enjoying their share of the common property of the Union. 

I meet this claim with a counter-claim. If, on the one hand, the consecra- 
tion of this soil to freedom will exclude the slaveholders of the South, it is 
just as true, on the other hand, that the desecration of it to slavery will 
exclude the freemen of the North. We, at the North, know too well the 
foundations of worldly prosperity and happiness ; we know too well the 
sources of social and moral welfare, ever voluntarily to blend our fortunes 
with those of a community where slavery is tolerated. If our demand for 
free territory, then, excludes thern, their demand for slave territory excludes 
us. Not one in five hundred of the freemen of the North could ever be 
induced to take his family and domicile himself in a Territory where slavery 
exists. They know that the institution would impoverish their estate, demor- 
alize their children, and harrow their own consciences with an ever-present 
sense of guilt, until those consciences, by force of habit and induration, should 
pass into that callous and more deplorable state, where continuous crime could 
be committed without the feeling of remorse. 

Sir, let me read a passage from Dr. Channing, written in 1798, — fifty 
years ago, — when, at the early age of nineteen, he lived for some time in 



Richmond, Virfjinia, as n tutor in n private family. While there, he wrote a 
letter, of wliich the following is an extract : 

" There is one olijecl here which always depresses nie. It is slarery. Tiiis alone would pre- 
vent me from everseillini; in Virginia. I.anfiuaije cannot express rny deteslaiion of it. Master 
and slave ! Nature never made ^uc•^l a distinction, or estal.lislied sui h a relation. Man, when 
forced to suhstitute the will of another for his own, ceases to he a moral apent ; his title to the 
name of man is cxlins;uished ; he hccomes a mere machine in the hands of his ooprrssor. No 
empire is so valuahle as the em|)ire of one's self. No ri^hl is so inseparahle from humanity, and 
so necessary to the im])rovenieMl of our species, as the riyht of rxerlinp the jxiwers which nature 
ha.s given us in the pursuit of any and of every tjood which we can olitaiii wilhout doiiii; injury lo 
others. Shoulil you desire it, 1 will cjive you some idea of the siiualion an<l characirr of the ne- 
irroes in Virijinia. It is a suhject so degrading to humanity, that I cannot dwell on it with jileas- 
ure. I should he oMiged to show you every vice, heightened hy every meanness, ami adtled to 
every misery. The influence of slavery on the whites is almost as fatal as on the hlacks theni- 
selve's." 

This was written fifty years ago, by a young man from New England, only 
nineteen years old. I know that, on all subjects of philanthrojjy and ethics, 
Dr. Channing was half a centur}- in advance of his age. But the sentiments 
he expressed on this subject, at the close of the last century, are now the prev- 
alent, deep-seated feelings of northern men, excepting, perhaps, a few cases, 
where these feelings have been corrupted by interest. 

I repeat, then, that the north cannot shut out the south from the new Terri- 
tories by a law for excluding slavery, more efTectually than the south will shut 
out the north by the fact of introducing slavery. Even admitting, then, that 
the law is equal for both north and south, I will show that all the equity is on 
the side of the north. 

Sir, from the establishment of our independence by the treaty of 17S3, to 
the time of the adoption of the Constitution, and for years afterwards, no trace 
is to be found of an intention to enlarge the bounds of our Republic ; and it is 
well known that the treaty of 1S03, for acquiring Louisiana, was acknowl- 
edged by Mr. Jefferson, who made it, to be unconstitutional. In 17S7, the 
Magna Charta of perpetual freedom was secured to the Northwest Territor}'. 
But the article excluding slavery from it had an earlier date than 1787. On 
the first of March, 1784, Congress voted to accept a cession from the State of 
Virginia of her claim to the territory northwest of the Ohio river. The sub- 
ject of providing a government for this and other territory was referred to a 
committee consisting of Mr. Jefferson, Mr. Chase of Maryland, and Mr. How- 
ell of Rhode Island. On the 19th of April, 1784, their report was considered. 
That report contained the following ever-memorable clause : 

" That after the year 1800. of the Christian era, there shall he neither slavery nor involuntary 
servitude in any of the said Stales, [they were spoken of as States, hecause it was always contem- 
plated to erect the Territories into Slates,) otherwise than in punishment of crimes whereof the 
party shall have heen convicted to have been personally guilty." 

Sir, we hear much said in our day of the Wilmot proviso against slavery 
In former years, great credit has been given to Mr. Nathan Dane, of Massa- 
chusetts, for originating the sixth article, (against slavery,) in the ordinance 
of 17S7. Sir, it is a misnomer to call this restrictive clause the "Wilmot 
proviso." It is the Jefferson proaso, and Mr. Jefferson should have the honor 
of it ; and would to Heaven that our southern friends, who kneel so devoutly 
at his shrine, could be animated by that lofty spirit of freedom, that love for 
the rights of man, which alone can make their acts of devotion sacred. 

But what >s most material to be observed here, is, that the plan of govern- 
ment reported by Mr. Jefferson, and acted upon by the Congress at that time, 
embraced all the " western territory." It embraced all the " territory ceded, 
or to be ceded, by individual States to the United States." — See Journals of 
Congress, April 23, 1784. If, then, we leave out Kentucky and Tennessee, 
as being parts of Virginia and North Carolina, all the residue of the territory 
north or south of the Ohio river, within the treaty limits of the United States, 
was intended, by the " Jefferson proviso," to be rescued from the doom of 
slavery. For that proviso there were sixteen votes, and only seven against it. 
Yet so singularlj^ were these seven votes distributed, and so large a majority 
of the States did it require to pass an act, that it was lost. The whole of the 
2 



10 

representation from seven States voted for it unanimously. Only two States 
voted unanimously against it. Had but one of Mr Jefferson's colleagues 
voted with him, and had Mr. Spaight, of North Carolina, voted for it, the re- 
strictive clause in the report would have stood. But a minority of seven from 
the slaveholding States controlled a majority of sixteen from the free States; — 
ominous even at that early day of a fate that has now relentlessly pursued us 
for sixty years. 

That vote was certainly no more than a fair representation of the feeling of 
the country against slavery at that time. It was with such a feeling that the 
" compromises of the Constitution," as they are called, were entered into. 
Nobody dreaded or dreamed of the extension of slavery beyond its then exist- 
ing limits. Yet behold its aggressive march ! Besides Kentucky and Ten- 
nessee, which I omit, for reasons before intimated, seven new slave States have 
been added to the Union, — Mississippi, Alabama, Missouri, Arkansas, Loui- 
siana, Florida, and Texas, — the last five out of territory not belonging to us 
at the adoption of the Constitution; while only one free State, Iowa, has been 
added during all this time, out of such newly-acquired territory.*^ 

But there is another fact, which shows that the slaveholders have already 
had their full share of territory, however wide the boundaries of this country 
may hereafter become. 

I have seen the number of actual slaveholders variously estimated ; but the 
highest estimate I have ever seen is three hundred thousand. Allowing six 
persons to a family, this number would represent a white population of eigh- 
teen hundred thousand. 

Mr. GAYLE, of Alabama, interrupted and said : If the gentleman from 
Massachusetts has been informed that the number of slaveholders is only 
300,000, then I will tell him his information is utterly false. 

Mr. MANN. Will the gentleman tell me how many there are ? 

Mr. GAYLE. Ten times as many. 

Mr. MANN. Ten times as many! Ten times 300,000 is 3,000,000 ; and 
allowing six persons to each family, this would give a population of 18,000,000 
directly connected with slaveholding ; while the whole free population of the 
south, in 1840, was considerably less than five millions ! 

Mr. MEADE, of Virginia, here interposed and said, that where father or 
mother owned slaves, they were considered the joint property of the family. 
I think, if you include the grown and the young, there are about three mil- 
lions interested in slave property. 

Mr. MANN resumed. My data lead me to believe that the number does 
not now exceed two millions ; but, at the time of the adoption of the Consti- 
tution, the number directly connected with slaveholding must have been less 
than one million. Yet this one million have already managed to acquire the 
broad States of Missouri, Arkansas, Louisiana, Florida, and Texas, beyond 
the limits of the treaty of 1783 ; when, at the time the " compromises of the 
Constitution " were entered into, not one of the parties supposed that we 
should ever acquire territory beyond those limits. And this has been done for 
the benefit (if it be a benefit) of that one million of slaveholders, against what 
is now a free population of fifteen millions. And, in addition to this, it is to 
be considered that the non-slaveholding population of the slave States have as 
direct and deep an interest as any part of the country, adverse to the extension 

* Here Mr. Hilliard, of Alabama, rose to ask if the South, hy the Missouri compromise, liad 
not surrendered its riqht to carry slavery north of the com|)romise line? The question was not 
understood. If it had lieen, it would have heen rei)lied, that the existence of slavery at New Or- 
leans, and a few other ])laces in Louisiana, at the tune of the treaty with France, hy no means es- 
tablished the ri2;lit to carry it to the Pacific Ocean, if the treaty extended so far. Slavery being 
aijai'ist natural rit^ht, can only exist by virtue of positive law, backed by force sufficient to protect 
it. It could not lawfully exist, therefore, in any part of Louisiana, which had not been laid out, 
ori^anized, and subjected to ihe civil jurisdiction of the Government. Such was not the case with 
any mirt of the territory norlh of tlic coiHpromise line ; and therefore nothing was surrendered. 
On trie other hand, in the formation of ilie Territorial Governments of Orleans, Missouri, Arkan- 
sas, an<i l-'lorida, a vast exlenl of country was surrendered to slavery. And this is independent of 
the question, whether Consiress, by llie Constiluiioii, has any more right to establish slavery awj- 
tchere, than it has to establish an in(|uisition, create an order of iKibiliiy, or aimint a king. 



11 

of slavery. If all our now territory lio (loomed to slavery, where ran tlie non- 
slavolutlilers of the sliiveholdiiiy; States eiiii;,'-rate to ? Are they lutt to l»e con- 
sidered ? Has one half the population of the slaveholdin<j States ri<(hts, which 
are paramount, not only to the rij^hts of the other half, hut to the rif,Mits of all 
the free States besides? for such is the claim. No, sir. I say that, if slavery 
were no moral or political evil, yet, accordini;^ to all principles of justii-e and 
equity, the slaveholders have already obtained their full share of territorj', 
thou<,^h all the residue of this continent were to be annexed to thr- Union, and 
we were to become, in the insane language of the day, " an ocean-bound 
Republic." 

I now proceed to consider the nature and effects of slavery, as a reason why 
new-born communities should be exempted from it. First, let me treat of its 
economical or financial, and secondly, of its moral aspects. 

Though slaves are said to be property, they are the preventers, the wasters, 
the antJ\gonists, of property. So far from facilitating the increase of individ- 
ual or national wealth, slavery retards both. It blasts worldly prosperity. 
Otlier things being equal, a free people will thrive and prosper, in a mere 
worldly sense, more than a people divided into masters and slaves. Were we 
so constituted as to care for nothing, to aspire to nothing, beyond mere tem- 
poral well-being, this well-being would counsel us to abolish slavery wherever 
it exists, and to repel its approach wherever it threatens. 

Enslave a man, and you destroy his ambition, his enterprise, his capacity. 
In the constitution of human nature, the desire of bettering one's condition is 
the main-spring of effort. The first touch of slavery snaps this spring. The 
slave does not participate in the value of the wealth he creates. All he earns, 
another seizes. A free man labors, not only to improve his own condition, 
but to better the condition of his children. The mighty impulse of parental 
affection repays for diligence, and makes exertion sweet. The slave's heart 
never beats with this high emotion. However industrious and frugal he may 
be. he has nothing to bequeath to his children, — or nothing save the sad 
bonds he himself has worn. Fear may make him work, but hope — never. 
When he moves his tardy limbs, it is because of the suffering that goads him 
from behind, and not from the bright prospects that beckon him forward in 
the race. 

What would a slave-owner at the south think, should he come to ]\Iassa- 
chusetts, and there see a farmer seize upon his hired man, call in a surgeon, 
and cut off all the flexor muscles of his arms and legs? I do not ask what he 
would think of his humanity, but what would he think of his sanity ? Yet 
the planter does more than this when he makes a man a slave. He cuts 
deeper than the muscles ; he destroys the spirit that moves the muscles. 

In all ages of the world, among all nations, wherever the earnings of the 
laborer have been stolen away from him, his energies have gone with his 
earnings. Under the villeinage system of England, the villeins were a low, 
idle, spiritless race ; dead to responsibility ; grovelling in their desires ; resist- 
ant of labor; without enterprise; without foresight. This principle is now 
exemplified in the landlord and tenant system of Ireland. If a tenant is to be 
no better off for the improvements he makes on an estate, he Avill not make 
the improvements. Look at the seigniories of New York, — the anti-rent dis- 
tricts as they are now called; — every man acquainted with the subject knows 
that both people and husbandry are half a century behind the condition of con- 
tiguous fee-simple proprietorships. All history illustrates the principle, that 
when property is insecure, it will not be earned. If a despot can seize and 
confiscate the property of his subject at pleasure, the subject will not acquire 
property, and thereby give to himself the conspicuousness that invites the 
plunder. And if this be so when property is merely insecure, what must be 
the effect when a man has no property whatever in his earnings ? Who does 
not know that a slave, who can rationally hope to purchase his freedom, will 
do all the work he ever did before, and earn his freedom money besides ? 
Slavery, therefore, though claiming to be a kind of property, is the bane of 



12 

property ; and the more slaves there are found in the inventory of a nation's 
wealth, the less in value will the aggregate of that inventory be. 

This is one of the reasons why slave labor is so much less efficient than free 
labor. The former can never compete with the latter ; and while the greater 
service is performed with cheerfulness, the smaller is extorted by fear. Just 
as certain as that the locomotive can outrun the horse, and the lightning out- 
speed the locomotive, just so certain is it that he who is animated by the hopes 
and the rewards of freedom will outstrip the disheartened and fear-driven 
slave. 

The intelligent freeman can afford to live well, dress decently, and occupy 
a comfortable tenement. A scanty subsistence, a squalid garb, a mean and 
dilapidated hovel, proclaim the degradation of the slave. The slave States 
gain millions of dollars every year from the privations, the mean food, clothing, 
and shelter, to which the slaves are subjected ; and yet they grow rich less 
rapidly than States Avhere millions of dollars are annually expended for the 
comfort.s and conveniences of the laborer. More is lost in production than is 
gained by privation. 

A universal concomitant of slavery is, that it makes white labor disreputa- 
ble. Being disreputable, it is shunned. The pecuniary loss resulting from 
this is incalculable. Dry up the myriad head-springs of the Mississippi, and 
where would be the mighty volume of waters which now bear navies on their 
bosom, and lift the ocean itself above its level, by their outpouring flood ? 
Abolish those sources of wealth, which consist in the personal industry of 
every man, and of each member of every man's family, and that wide-spread 
thrift, and competence, and elegance, which are both the reward and the stim- 
ulus of labor, will be abolished with them. Forego the means, and you for- 
feit the end. You must use the instrument if you would have the product. 
Nothing but the feeling of independence, the conscious security of working 
for one's self and one's family, will, in the present state of the world, make 
labor profitable. 

I know it has been recently said in this Capitol, and by high authority, that, 
with the exception of menial services, it is not disreputable at the south for a 
white man to labor. There are two ways, each independent of the other, to 
disprove this assertion. One of them consists in the testimony of a host of 
intelligent witnesses acquainted with the condition of things at the south. I 
might quote page after page from various sources ; but, as the assertion comes 
from a gentleman belonging to South Carolina, I will meet it with the state- 
ments of another gentleman belonging to the same State. I refer to Mr. Wil- 
liam Gregg, of Charleston, — a gentleman who is extensively acquainted with 
the social condition of men both north and south. 

In that State, according to the last census, there were about 150,000 free 
whites, over twelve years of age. " Of this class," says Mr. Gregg, " fifty 
thousand are non-producers."* I suppose South Carolina to be as thrifty a 
slave State as there is, perhaps excepting Georgia ; yet here is one third part 
of the population, old enough to work and able to work, who are idle, and of 
course vicious, — non-producers, but the worst kind of consumers. 

Another answer to the above assertion is. that if white labor were reputable 
at the south, and white men were industrious, the whole country would be a 
garden, — a terrestrial paradise, — so far as neatness, abundance, and beauty, 
are concerned. Where are the rksults of this respected and honored lohite 
labor'? In a country where few expenses are necessary to ward off the rigors 
of winter ; where the richest staples of the world are produced ; where cattle 
arid flocks need but little shelter, and sometimes none ; if man superadded his 
industry to the bounties of nature, want would be wholly unknown ; compe- 
tence would give place to opulence, and the highest decorations of art would 
mingle with the glowing beauties of nature. 

But hear Mr. Gregg : 

* Essays on Dfunostic Ituliislry, or \y\\ IiKniiry into llie expediency of cstablishipg Cotton Manu- 
factories iti South Carolina, Is-Ij. 



" My recent visit to the iiorthoni States has fully Kuiislii-i| me that the true secret of our dirti- 
cullies lies in the want of energy on the part of our ea|)iiiilistN, and iLnmraucc and hi/inusK on the 
part of those who ought to lahor. We need never look (or lliril'l while we permit our immense 
limlier forests, granite quarries, and mines to lie idle, and sMj)ply onr-elves with hewn granite, 
pine hoards, laths, shingles, file., furnished \,\ ilie lazy dogs o( the North ; ah ! worve ihan this ; 
we see our hack country farmers, many of whom are, too lazy lo mend u hroken tfale, or repair the 
fenci's lo proteel their crops from the neighlionriiig stock, ailually supplied willi their axe, hoe. 
and hrooiii handles, pitchforks, nikrs, &c., Iiy the imtolciit mouiiliiiiietrs of New Haiiiijvhire and 
Massachusetts. The time was, when every old woman had her gourd, from which the country 
gardens were sni)plied with seed. \Vc now (iiul it more convenient lo permit this iliny to devolve 
on our careful rriends, the Yankees. Even our hoat <iars, and handspikes for rolling logs, are 
furnished, ready ina<le, to our hand," &c. " Need I add, lo further e.xem|)lify our excessive indo- 
lence, that the Charleston market is supplied will) fish and wild game hy northern men, who come 
out here as regularly as the w-inler comes, for this purjiose, and from our own waters and lliresis 
often realize, in the course of one winter, a sulliciency to purchase a small farm in New Eng- 
land." — Essays, page 8. 

Again : 

" It is only necessary to travel over the sterile mountains of Connecticut, Massachuselt.s, Ver- 
mont, and New Hampshire, to learn the true secret of our difficulties," — " to learn the ditTorence 
tietween indolence aiul industry, extravagance and economy. We there see the scenery, which 
would lake the place of our unpainted mansions, dilapiilated caliiiis, with mud chimneys, and no 
windows, hrokcn-down rail fences, fields overgrown wilh weeds, and thrown away half exhausted, 
to he taken up hy pine thickets ; lieef cattle unprotected from the inclemency of winter, and so 
jioor as harely to preserve life." — Essaijs, page 7. 

And again : 

" Shall we pass unnoticed the thousands of poor, ignorant, degraded white people among us, 
who, in this land of plenty, live in comparative nakedness and starvation ? Many a one is reared 
\n proud South Carolina, from hirth to manhood, who has never passed a month in which he has 
not, some part of the time, been stinted for meat. Many a mother is there who will tell vou that 
hiT children are liul scantily supplied with hrcad, and much more scantily with meal, and if they 
he clad with comforlalile raiment, it is at the exjiense of these scanty allowances of food. These 
may he startling statemeiils. tun they are nevertheless true ; and, if not believed in Charleston, 
the memliers of our Legislature, who have traversed the State in electioneering campaigns, can 
attest their truth." — Essui/.i, page 22. 

After such statements as the.se ; after the testimony of hundreds and hun- 
dreds of eye-witnesses ; after the proofs furnished by the aggregates of pro- 
ducts, published in our Patent Office Reports, it is drawing a little too heavily 
on our credulity to say that the white man at the South is industrious. In- 
dustry manifests itself by its results, as the sun manifests itself by shining. 

But slavery is hostile to the pecuniary advancement of the community in 
another way. The slave must be kept in ignorance. He must not be edu- 
cated, lest with education should come a knowledge of his natural rights, and 
the means of escape or the power of vengeance. To secure the abolition of 
his freedom, the growth of his mind inust be abolished. His education, there- 
fore, is prohibited by statute, under terrible penalties. 

Now a man is weak in his muscles ; he is strong only in his faculties. In 
physical strength, how inuch superior is an ox or a horse to a man ; in fleetness, 
the dromedary or the eagle. It is through mental strength only that man be- 
cotnes the superior and governor of all animals. 

It was not the design of Providence that the work of the world should be 
performed by muscular strength. God has filled the earth and imbued the 
elements with energies of greater power than that of all the inhabitants of a 
thousand planets like ours. Whence come our necessaries and our luxuries? — 
those comforts and appliances that make the difference between a houseless, 
wandering tribe of Indians in the far West, and a New England village. 
They do not come wholly or principally from the original, tinassisted strength 
of the human arm, but from the employment, through intelligence and skill, 
of those great natural forces, with which the bountiful Creator has filled every 
part of the material Universe. Caloric, gravitation, expansibility, compressi- 
bility, electricity, chemical affinities and repulsions, spontaneous velocities, — 
these are the mighty agents which the intellect of man harnesses to the car of 
improvement. The application of water, and wind, and steam, to the propul- 
sion of machinery, and to the transportation of men and merchandise from 
place to place, has added ten thousand fold to the actual products of human 
industry. How small the wheel which the stoutest laborer can turn, and how 
soon will he be weary. Compare this with a wheel driving a thousand spin- 



14 

dies or looms, Avhich a stream of water can turn, and neA'er tire. A locomo- 
tive will take five hundred men, and bear them on their journey hundreds of 
miles in a day. Look at these same five hundred men, starting from the same 
point, and attempting- the same distance, with all the pedestrian's or the eques- 
trian's toil and tardiness. The cotton mills of Massachusetts will turn out 
more cloth in one day than could have been manufactured by all the inhabit- 
ants of the Eastern continent during the tenth century. On an element which, 
in ancient times, was supposed to be exclusively within the control of the gods, 
and where it was deemed impious for human power to intnide, even there the 
gigantic forces of nature, which human science and skill have enlisted in their 
service, confront and overcome the raging of the elements, — breasting tem- 
pests and tides, escaping reefs and lee-shores, and careering triumphant around 
the globe. The velocity of winds, the weight of waters, and the rage of steam, 
are powers, each one of which is infinitely stronger than all the strength of all 
the nations and races of mankind, were it all gathered into a single arm. And 
all these energies are given us on one condition, — the condition of intelli- 
gence, — that is, of education. 

Had God intended that the work of the world should be done by human 
bones and sinews, he would have given us an arm as solid and strong as the 
shaft of a steam-engine ; and enabled us to stand, day and night, and turn the 
crank of a steamship while sailing to Liverpool or Calcutta. Had God de- 
signed the human muscles to do the work of the world, then, instead of the 
ingredients of gun-powder or gun-cotton, and the expansive force of heat, he 
would have given us hands which could take a granite quarry and break its 
solid acres into suitable and symmetrical blocks, as easily as we now open an 
orange. Had he intended us for bearing burdens, he would have given us 
Atlanteau .shoulders, by which we could carry the vast freights of rail-car and 
steamship, as a porter carries his pack. He would have given us lungs by 
which we could blow fleets before us ; and wings to sweep over ocean wastes. 
But, instead of iron arms, and Atlantean shoulders, and the lungs of Boreas, 
he has given us a mind, a soul, a capacity of acquiring knowledge, and thus 
of appropriating all these energies of nature to our own use. Instead of a 
telescopic and microscopic eye, he has given us power to invent the telescope 
and the microscope. Instead of ten thousand fingers, he has given us genius 
inventive of the power-loom and the printing-press. Without a cultivated in- 
tellect, man is among the weakest of all the dynamical forces of nature ; Avith 
a cultivated intellect, he commands them all. 

And now, what does the slave-maker do ? He abolishes this mighty power 
of the intellect, and uses only the weak, degraded, and half animated forces 
of the human limbs. A thousand slaves may stand by a river, and to them it 
is only an object of fear or of superstition. An educated man surpasses the 
ancient idea of a river-god ; he stands by the Penobscot, the Kennebec, the 
Merrimack, or the Connecticut ; he commands each of them to do more work 
than could be performed by a hundred thousand men, — to saw timber, to 
make cloth, to grind corn, — and they obey. Ignorant slaves stand upon a 
coal-mine, and to them it is only a worthless part of the inanimate earth. An 
educated man uses the same mine to print a million of books. Slaves will 
seek to obtain the same crop from the same field, year after year, though the 
pahidam of that crop is exhausted ; the educated man, with his chemist's eye, 
sees not only the minutest atoms of earth, but the imponderable gases that 
permeate it, and he is rewarded with an unbroken succession of luxuriant 
harvests. 

Nor arc these advantages confined to those departments of nature wliere 
her mightiest forces are brought into requisition. In accomplishing whatever 
rctjuires delicacy and precision, nature is as much more perfect than man, as 
she is more powerful in whatever requires strength. Whether in great or in 
small operations, all the improvements in the mechanical and the useful arts 
come as directly from intelligence, as a bird comes out of a shell, or the beau- 
tiful colors of a flower out of sunshine. The slave-worker is forever prying 



15 

at the short end of Nature's lever, and iisirij^ the b;uk instead of tin- edge of 
her fiiR'.st instnuneiits. 

Sir, tlu' most abundant proof exists, derived from all (Icpartniciits of Inmian 
industry, that uneducated labor is comparatively unprolitabli- labor. I liave 
before me the statements of a number of the most inteliit^rent gentlemen of 
Massachusetts, aflirminof this fact as the result of an experience extendinir 
over many years. In Massachusetts we have no native born child wholly 
without school instruction ; but the degrees of attainment, of mental develo])- 
ment, are various. Haifa dozen years ago, the Massachusett.-< lioard of Edu- 
cation obtained statements from large numbers of our master maimfactun'rs, 
authenticated from the books of their respective establishments, and covering 
a series of years, the result of which was, that increased wages were found in 
connection with increased intelligence, just as certainly as increased heat raises 
the mercury in the thermometer. Foreigners, and those coming from other 
States, who made their marks when they receipted their bills, earned the least; 
those who had a modemte, or limited education, occupied a middle ground on 
the pay-roll ; while the intelligent young women who worked in the mills in 
winter, and taught schools in summer, crowned the list. The larger capital, 
in the form of intelligence, yielded the larger interest in the form of wages. 
This inquiry was not confined to manufactures, but was extended to other de- 
partments of business, where the results of labor could be made the subject of 
exact measurement. 

This is universally so. The mechanic sees it, when he compares the work 
of a stupid with that of an awakened mind. The traveller sees it, when he 
passes from an educated into an uneducated nation. Sir, there are countries 
in Europe, lying side by side, where, without compass or chart, without bound 
or landmark, I could run the line of demarcation between the two, by the broad, 
legible characters which ignorance has written on roads, fields, houses, and the 
persons of men, women, and children, on one side, and which knowledge has 
inscribed on the other. 

This difference is most striking in the mechanic arts, but it is clearly visible 
also in husbandry. Not the most fertile soil, not mines of silver and gold, can 
make a nation rich, without intelligence. Who ever had a more fertile soil 
than the Egyptians ? Who have handled more silver and gold than the 
Spaniards? The universal cultivation of the mind and heart is the only true 
source of opulence; — the cultivation of the mind, by which to lay hold on 
the treasures of nature ; the cultivation of the heart, by which to devote those 
treasures to beneficent uses. Where this cultivation exists, no matter how 
barren the soil or ungenial the clime, there comfort and competence will 
abound ; for it is the intellectual and moral condition of the cultivator that 
impoverishes the soil or makes it teem with abundance. He who disobeys 
the law of God in regard to the culture of the intellectual and spiritual nature, 
may live in the valley of the Nile, but he can rear only the " lean kine " of 
Pharaoh ; but he who obeys the highest law may dwell in the cold and inhos- 
pitable regions of Scotland or of New England, and " well-formed and fat- 
fleshed kine" shall feed on all his meadows. If Pharaoh will be a taskmaster, 
and will not let the bondmen go free, the corn in his field shall be the " seven 
thin ears blasted by the east wind ;" but if he will obey the commandments 
of the Lord, then behold there shall be " seven ears of corn upon one stallc, 
all rank and good." Sir, the sweat of a slave poisons the soil upon which it 
falls ; his breath is mildew to every green thing; his tear withers the verdure 
it drops upon. 

But slaverv makes the general education of the whites impossible. You 
cannot have general education without Common Schools. Common Schools 
cannot exist where the population is sparse. Where slaves till the soil, or do 
the principal part of whatever work is done, the free population must be sparse. 
Slavery, then, by an inexorable law, denies general education to the whites. 
The Providence of God is just and retributive. Create a serf caste, and debar 
them from education, and you necessarily debar a great portion of the privi- 
leged class from education also. It is impossible, in the present state of things, 



16 

or in any state of things which can be foreseen, to have free and universal 
education in a slave state. The difficuUy is insurmountable. For a well 
organized system of Common Schools, there should be two hundred children, 
at least, living in such proximity to each other that the oldest of them can 
come together to a central school. It is not enough to gather from within a 
circle of half a dozen miles' diameter fifty or sixty children for a single school. 
This brings all ages and all studies into the same room. A good system 
requires a separation of school children into four, or at least into three, classes, 
according to ages and attainments. Without this gradation, a school is bereft 
of more than half its efficiency. Now, this can never be done in an agricul- 
tural community where tliere are two classes of men, — one to do all the work, 
and the other to seize all the profits. With New England habits of industr}', 
and with that diversified labor which would be sure to spring from intelligence, 
the State of Virginia, which skirts us here on the south, would support all the 
population of the New England States, and fill them with abundance. 

Mr. BAYLY. We have as great a population as New England now. 

Mr. MANN. As great a population as New England ! ! 

Mr. BAYLY. We send fifteen representatives. 

[A voice. And how many of them represent slaves ?] 

Mr. MANN. Massachusetts alone sends ten representatives. 

[A voice. And the rest of New England twenty-one more.] 

Mr. MANN. I say, sir, the single State of Virginia could support in 
abundance the whole population of New England. With such a free popula- 
tion, the school children would be so numerous that public schools might be 
op3ned within three or four miles of each other all over its territory, — the 
light of each of which, blending with its neighboring lights, would illumine 
the whole land. They would be schools, too, in point of cheapness, within 
every man's means. The degrading idea of pauper schools would be dis- 
carded forever. But what is the condition of Virginia now ? One quarter 
part of all its adult free white population are unable to read or write, and were 
proclaimed to be so by a late Governor, in his annual message, without pro- 
ducing any reform. Their remedy is to choose a Governor who will not 
proclaim such a fact. When has Virginia, in any State or national election, 
given a majority equal to the number of its voters unable to read or write ? 
A Republican government supported by the two pillars of Slavery and Igno- 
rance ! 

In South Carolina there is also a fund for the support of pauper schools ; 
but this had become so useless, and was so disdained by its objects, that a late 
Governor of the State, in his annual message, recommended that it should 
be withdrawn from them altogether. 

Yet in many of the slave States there are beautiful paper systems of 
Common Schools,' — dead laws in the statute-books, — and the census tells us 
how profitless they have been. In 1840, in the fifteen slave States and Ter- 
ritories, there were only 201,085 scholars at the primary schools. In the 
same class of schools in the free States, there were 1,626,028, — eight times 
as many. New York alone had 502,367, or two and a half times as many 
The scholars in the primary schools of Ohio alone outnumbered all those in 
the fifteen slave States and Territories by more than 17,000. In the slave 
States, almost one tenth part of the free white population over twenty years 
of age are unable to read and write. In the free States, less than one in one 
hundred and fifty ; and at least four fifths of these are foreigners, who ought 
not to be included in the computation. Many of the slave States, too, have 
munificent school funds. Kentucky has one of more than a million of dollars; 
Tennessee of two millions; yet, in 1837, Governor Clarke, of Kentucky, 
declared, in his message to the Legislature, that " one third of the adult 
population were unable to write their names ;" and in the State of Tennes.see. 
according to the last census, there were 58,531 of the same description of 
persons. Surely it would take more than five of these to make three free- 
men; for the more a State has of thorn the less of intelligent freedom will 
there be in it. And if the schools in the slave States nr- irmpared with the 



17 

sciiools in the free States, the deficiency in quality will be as great as the 
deficiency in number. 

Sir, durinfj the last ten years I have had a most exten^vc correspondence 
with the intelligent friends of education in the slave States. They yearn for 
progress, but they cannot obtain it. They procure laws to be passed, but 
there is no one to execute them. They set forth the benefits and the bless- 
ings of education ; but they speak in a vacuum, and no one hears the appeal. 
If a parent wishes to educate his children, he must send them from home, and 
thus sulfer a sort of bereavement, even wliile they live ; or he must employ a 
tutor or governess in his family, which few are able to do. The rich may do 
it, but what becomes of the children of the poor? In cities the obstacles are 
less ; but the number of persons resident in cities is relatively small. All 
this is the inevitable consequence of slavery ; and it is as impossible for free, 
thorough, universal education to coexist with slavery as for two bodies to 
occupy the same space at the same time. Slavery would abolish education, 
if it should invade a free State ; education would abolish slavery, if it could 
invade a slave State. 

Destroying common education, slavery destroys the fruits of common edu- 
cation, — the inventive mind, practical talent, the power of adapting means 
to ends in the business of life. Whence have come all those mechanical and 
scientific improvements and inventions which have enriched the world with 
so many comforts, and adorned it with so many beauties ; which to-day give 
enjoyments and luxuries to a common family in a New England village, 
that neither Queen Elizabeth of England nor any of her proud court ever 
dreamed of, but a little more than two centuries ago ? Among whom have 
these improvements originated ? All history and experience affirm that they 
have come, and must come, from people among whom education is most 
generous and unconfined. Increase the constituowy, if I may so speak, of de- 
veloped intellect, and you increase in an equal ratio the chances of inventive, 
creative genius. From what part of our own country has come the application 
of steam to the propulsion of boats for commercial purposes, or of wheels for 
manufacturing purposes ? Where have the various and almost infinite im- 
provements been made which have resulted in the present perfection of cotton 
and woollen machinery ? Whence came the invention of the cotton-gin, and 
the great improvements in railroads ? Where w^as born the mighty genius 
who invented the first lightning-rod, which sends the electric fluid harmless 
into the earth ; or that other genius, not less beneficent, who invented the 
second lightning-rod, which sends the same fluid from city to city on mes- 
sages of business or of affection ? Sir, these are results which you can no 
more have without common education, without imbuing the public mind w^ith 
the elements of knowledge, than you can have corn without planting, or 
harvests without sunshine. 

Look into the Patent Office reports, and see in what sections of country' 
mechanical improvements and the application of science to the useful arts 
have originated. Out of /re hnndrcd and scceyity-tico patents issued in 1817, 
only sixty-six were to the slave States. The patents annually issued, it is 
true, are a mingled heap of chaff and wheat, but some of it is wheat worthy 
of Olympus. I think the Patent Office reports show, that at least six or eight 
times as many patents have been taken out for the North as for the South. 
What improvements will a slave ever make in agricultural implements; in the 
manufacture of metals ; in preparing wool, cotton, silk, fur, or paper ; in chem- 
ical processes ; in the application of steam ; in philosophical, nautical, or optical 
instruments ; in civil engineering, architecture, the construction of roads, 
canals, w-har\'es, bridges, docks, piers, &c. ; in hydraulics or pneumatics ; in 
the application of the mechanical powers ; in household furniture, or wearing 
apparel ; in printing, binding, engraving, «kc., &c. ? This question, when put 
in reference to slaves, appears ridiculous ; and yet it is no more absurd, when 
asked in reference to an ignorant slave, than when asked in reference to an 
uneducated \vhite man. The fact that the latter is a voter makes no difl^er- 
ence, notwithstanding the common opinion, in certain latitudes, that it does. 
o 



18 

All such improvements come from minds which have had an early awakening, 
and been put on scientific trains of thought in their childhood and youth, — a 
thing utterly impossible for the people at large, without Common Schools, 

These are causes ; now look at effects. In the New England States, the 
iron manufacture is twenty times as much, according to the population, as it 
is in Virginia; and yet Virginia has far more of the ore than they. In cotton, 
we can hardly find a fraction low enough to express the difference. The 
ship-building in Maine and Massachusetts is thirty-five times as much as in 
Virginia. The North comes to the South, cuts their timber, carries it home, 
manufactures it, and then brings it back wrought into a hundred different 
forms, to be sold to those who would see it rot before their eyes. 

Can any man give a reason why Norfolk should not have grown like New 
York, other than the difference in the institutions of the people? Jamestown 
was settled before Plymouth, and had natural advantages superior to it. 
Plymouth now has a population of between seven and eight thousand, is 
worth two millions of dollars, and taxed itself last year, for schools and school- 
houses, more than seven thousand dollars. I ought rather to say, that it 
invested more than seven thousand dollars in a kind of stock that yields a 
hundred per cent, income. How many bats there may be in the ruins of 
Jamestown the last census does not inform us. The books printed at the 
South I suppose not to be equal to one fiftieth part of the number printed at 
the North. In maps, charts, engravings, and so forth, the elements of com- 
parison exist only on one side. 

Out of universal education come genius, skill, and enterprise, and the desire 
of bettering one's condition. Industry and frugality are their concomitants. 
Diversified labor secures a home market. Diligence earns much, but the 
absence of the vices of indolence saves more. Hence comforts abound, while 
capital accumulates. After the home consumption is supplied, there is a 
surplus for export. The balance of trade is favorable. All the higher insti- 
tutions of learning and religion can be liberally supported. These institutions 
impart an elevated and moral tone to society. Hence efforts for all kinds of 
social ameliorations. Temperance societies spring up. Societies for prevent- 
ing crime ; for saving from pauperism ; for the reform of prisons and the 
reformation of prisoners ; for peace ; for sending missionaries to the heathen ; 
for diffusing the Gospel, — all these, where a sound education is given, grow 
up, in the order of Providence, as an oak grows out of an acorn. 

In one thing the South has excelled, — in training statesmen. The primary 
and the ultimate effects of slavery upon this fact are so well set forth in a late 
sermon by Dr, Bushnell, of Hartford, Connecticut, that I will read a passage 
from it : 

"And here, since this institution of slavery, entering? into the fortunes of our history, compli- 
cates in so many ways the disorders \s'e suil'ur, I must nause a few moments to sketch its charac- 
teristics. Slavery, it is not to be denied, is an essentially barbarous institution. It gives us, too, 
that sign which is the perpetual distinction of barbarism, that it has no law of progress. The 
highest level it reaches is the level at which it begins. Indeed, we need not scruple to allow that 
it has yielded us one considerable advantage, in virtue of the fact that it produces its best con- 
dition first. For while the northern people were generally delving in labor, for many generations, 
to create a condition of comfort, slavery set the masters at once on a footing of ease, gave them 
leisure for elegant intercourse, for unprofessional studies, and seasoned their character thus with 
that kind of cultivation which distinguishes men of society. A class of statesmen were thus 
raised up, who were prenared to figure as leaders in scenes of public life, where so much deiiends 
on manners and social artdress. But now the scale is changing. Free labor is rising, at length, 
into a state of wealth and comfort, to take the lead of American society. Meanwhile, the foster 
sons of slavery, — the high families, the statesmen, — gradually receding in character, as they must 
under this vicious institution, are receding also in power and infiuence, and have been ever since 
the Revolution. .Slavery is a condition against nature; the curse of nature, therefore, is on it, 
and it bows to its doom by a law as irresistil)le as gravity. It produces a condition of ease which 
is not the reward of labor, and a state of degradation which is not the curse of idleness. There- 
fore, the ease it enjoys cannot but end in a curse, and the degradation it suffers cannot rise into 
a blessing. It nourishes imperious and violent passions. It makes the masters solitarv sheiks 
on their estates, forlddding tlius the possibility of public schools, and preventing also that con- 
densed form of society which is necessary to tne vigorous maintenance of churches. Education 
and religion thus displaced, the dinner-table only remains, and on this hangs, in great part, the 
keeping of the social slate. Hut however liighly we may estimate tiie humanizing power of hos- 
pitality, it cannot be regarded as any sufficient 'spring of charactc>r. It is neither a school nor a 
gospel. .\nd when it comes of self-indulgence, or only seeks relief for the tedium of an idle life, 
scarcely does it bring with it the blessings of a virtue. The accomplishments it yields are of a 



19 

tnock qwaliiy, ralliCT lliau of a rcul, haviinf ahout llie same rulaiiim lo a sul.slaiilial iiml (iiiished 
cullurt- ilul lioiiiir has lo cliaraciiT. This kind (if currency will pass no lonvfiT ; lor, it is not 
expense uithout cumlbrl, or spleiulor sel in disoriler, as diamonds in ]M'wler ; il is nol air in jilace 
of elei^anee, or assurance sulislitiited for ease ; neither is it to lie master of a llnent speiM h, or to 
garnish the same with stale (|notations from the classics ; mnch less is il to jive in the D.m Jnan 
vein, aecejjtiug liarharisin by |Mietic insi)iratioii. — the same hy which a late noMe |>o.'l, drawing 
out of Turks and pirates, hecanie the chosen laureate of slavery, — not any or all of these can 
make no such a slyle of man, or of life, as we in this a^e deinautl. We have come up now to a 
point wiiere we hiok for true intellectual relinemenl, arul a ripe state of |H'r>on;d culture. Hut how 
clearly is it seen to lie a violation of its own laws, for slavery lo produce a tfenuine .scholar or a 
man who, in any department of excellence, unless il he in politics, is not a full ceniurv I.ehirid his 
lime! And if we ask for what is dearer and heller still, lor a pure f christian morality, the voiiih 
of slavery arc trained in no such hahits as are n»>st congetiial to virtue. 'I'iie |H>int'iif hiiiior is 
the only principle many of iheni know. Violence autl dissipation hring down every sudeedini; 
generation lo a state continually lower; so that now, after a hundred and lifly years are pas.sed 
the slaveholding territory may he descrihed as a vast missionary ground, and one so uncomlortahle 
to the ri\ithful ministry of Cliriil, hy reason of its jealous tempers, and the known repugnance it 
has to many of the lirsi inaxims of the Gospel, thai scarcely a missionary can he foiinfl to enter it. 
Connected with this moral decay, the resources of nature also are exhausted, and her fertile terri- 
tories changed to a desert, by the uncrealliig jxiwer of ii spendthrift institution. And then, having 
made a waste where God had made a "urden, slavery gathers up the relics of baidiruptcv, and the 
baser relics still of virtue and all manly enlerj)ri,?e, and goes forth to renew, on a virgin soil, its 
dismal and forlorn history. Thus, al length, has been produced what may be called ihe bowie- 
knife slyle of civilization, and the new west of the South is overrun by it, — a sj)iril of blood 
which defies all laws of God and man ; — honorable, but not honest ; prompt to resent an injury 
slack to discharsv a debt ; educated to ease, and readier, of course, when the means of living fafi' 
lo fin;l them al t!ie g;imliling-table or the lace-ground, than in any work of industry, — prribably 
squandering the means of livin^' there, to relieve the tedium of ease itself." 

The free schools of the North lead to the common diffusion of knowledo-e, 
and the equalization of society. The private schools of the South divide men 
into patricians and plebeians; so that, in the latter, a nuisance grows out of 
education itself. In the public schools of New York there are libraries now 
amounting to more than a million of volumes. In the schools of Massachu- 
setts the number of volumes is relatively less, but the quality is greatlv 
superior. In each of these States, within half an hour's walk of the poorest 
farm-house or mechanic's shop, there is a library, free and open to every child, 
containing works of history, biography, travels, ethics, natural science, &c., &c., 
which will supply him with the noblest capital of intelligence, wherewith to 
commence the business of making himself a useful and intelligent citizen. 
With the exception of New Orleans, (whose free schools were commenced and 
have been presided over by a Massachusetts man,) and three or four other 
cities, all the libraries in the public schools of the slave States could be carried 
in a schoolboy's satchel. The libraries of all the universities and colleo-es of 
the South contain 223,416 volumes ; those of the North 593,897 volumes." The 
libraries of southern theological schools 22,800; those of northern 102,080. 

Look into Silliman's Journal, or the volumes of the American Academy of 
Arts and Sciences, and inquire whence the communications came. Where 
live the historians of the country, Sparks, Prescott, Bancroft ; the poets, 
Whittier, Bryant, Longfellow, Lowell : the jurists, Story, Kent, Wheaton; the 
classic models of writing, Charming, Everett, Irving; the female WTiters, Miss 
Sedgwick, Mrs. Sigourney, and Mrs. Child ? All this proceeds from no 
superiority of natural endowment on the one side, or inferiority on the other. 
The Southern States are all within what maybe called "the latitudes of 
genius ;" for there is a small b2lt around the' globe, comprising but a few 
degrees of latitude, which has produced all the distinguished men who ha\^ 
ever lived. I say this difference results from no difference in natural endow- 
ment. The mental endowments at the South are equal to those in any part 
of the world. But it comes because, in one quarter, the common atmosphere 
is vivihed with knowledge, electric with ideas, while slavery gathers in 
BcBotian fogs over the other. What West Point has been to our armies in 
Mexico, that, and more than that, good schools would be to the intellifrence 
and industrial prosperity of our countr}'. 

It may seem a little out of place, but I cannot forbear here adverting to one 
point, which, as a lover of children and a parent, touches me more deeply 
than any other. To whom are intrusted, at the South, the early care and 
nurture of children ? It has been thought by many educators and metaphy- 
sicians, that children learn as much before the age of seven years as ever 



20 

aftenvards. Who, at the South, administers this early knowledge, — these 
ideas, these views, that have such sovereign efficacy in the formation of adult 
character ? Who has the custody of children during this ductile, forming-, 
receptive period of life, — a period when the mind absorbs whatever is broufrht 
into contact with it ? Sir, the children of the South, more or less, and gen- 
erally more, are tended and nurtured by slaves. Ignorance, superstition, vul- 
garity, passion, and perhaps impurity, are the breasts at which they nurse. 
Whatever other afflictions God may see fit to bring upon me, whatever other 
mercies He may withhold, may He give me none but persons of intellio-ence, 
of refinement, and of moral excellence, to walk with my children during the 
imitative years of their existence, and to lead them in the paths of knowledge, 
and breathe into their hearts the breath of a moral and religious life. 

Before considering the moral character of slavery, I wish to advert for a 
moment to the position which we occupy as one of the nations of the earth, 
in this advancing period of the world's civilization. Nations, like individ- 
uals, have a character. The date of the latter is counted by years ; that 
of the former by centuries. No man can have any self-respect who is not 
solicitous about his posthumous reputation. No man can be a patriot who 
feels neither joy nor shame at the idea of the honor or the infamy which his 
age and his country' shall leave behind them. Nations, like individuals, 
have characteristic objects of ambition. Greece coveted the arts ; Kome 
gloried in war ; but liberty has been the goddess of our idolatry. Amid the 
storms of freedom were we cradled ; in the struggles of freedom have our 
joints been knit ; on the rich aliment of freedom have we gro\vn to our 
present stature. With a somewhat too boastful spirit, perhaps, have we 
challenged the admiration of the world for our devotion to liberty ; but an 
enthusiasm for the rights of man is so holy a passion, that even its excesses 
are not devoid of the beautiful. We have not only won freedom for ourselves, 
but we have taught its sacred lessons to others. The shout of " Death to 
tyrants, and freedom for man ! " which pealed through this country seventy 
years ago, has at length reached across the Atlantic ; and whoever has given 
an attentive ear to the sounds which have come back to us, within the last 
few months, from the European world, cannot have failed to perceive that they 
were only the far-travelled echoes of the American Declaration of Indepen- 
dence. But in the divine face of our liberty there has been one foul, demoniac 
feature. Whenever her votaries would approach her to worship, they have 
been fain to draw a veil over one part of her visage to conceal its hideousness. 
Whence came this deformity on her otherwise fair and celestial countenance ? 
Sad is the story, but it must be told. Her mother was a vampire. As the 
daughter lay helpless in her arms, the beldam tore open her living flesh, and 
feasted upon her life-blood. Hence this unsightly wound, that affrights who- 
ever beholds it. But, sir, I must leave dallying with these ambiguous meta- 
phors. One wants the plain, sinewy, Saxon tongue, to tell of deeds that 
should have shamed devils. Great Britain was the mother. Her American 
colonics were the daughter. The mother lusted for gold. To get it, she 
made partnership with robbery and death. Shackles, chains, and weapons 
for human butcherj', were her outfit in trade. She made Africa her hunting- 
ground. She made its people her prey, and the unwilling colonies her 
market-place. She broke into the Ethiop's home, as a wolf into a sheepfold 
at midnight. She set the continent a-flaine, that she might seize the affrighted 
inhabitants as they ran shrieking from their blazing hamlets. The aged and 
the infant she left for the vultures ; but the strong men and the strong women 
she drove, scourged and bleeding, to the shore. Packed and stowed like 
merchandize between unventilated decks, so close that the tempest without 
could not ruffle the pestilential air within, the voyage was begun. Once a 
day the hatches were opened, to receive food and to disgorge the dead. Tliou- 
sands and thousands of corpses, which she plunged into the ocean from the 
decks of her slave-ships, she counted only as the tare of commerce. The blue 
monsters of the deep became familiar with her pathway ; and, not more remorse- 
less than she, they shared her plunder. At length the accursed vessel reached 



2\ 

the foreign shore. Ami tluro, ninnstcrs of ilic IiiikI, fiercer and feller than any 
that roam iho watery plains, rewarded the roliher liy piirchasiii;,'- his sixiils. 

For more than a century did the madness of this trallic raije. During all 
those years, the clock of eternity never counted out a minute that did ncjt wit- 
ness the cruel death, hy treachery or violence, of some son or daughter, some 
father or mother, ol' Africa. The three millions of slaves that now darken our 
southern horizon .are the progeny of these progenitors, — a doomed nice, fated 
and suHering from sire to son. But the enormities of the mother country did 
not pass without remonstrance. Many of the colonies e.xjtostulated against, and 
rebuked them. The New England colonies. New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Vir- 
tfiiiia, presented to the throne the most humble and suppliant petitions, praying 
for the alH)lition of the trade. The colonial legislatures passed laws against it. 
But their petitions were sj)urned from the throne. Their laws were vetoed hy 
the governors. In informal negotiations, attempted with the ministers of the 
crown, tile friends of the slave were made to understand that royalty turned an 
adder's ear to their prayers. The profoundest feelings of lamentation and 
abhorrence were kindled in the bosoms of his western subjects by this flagitious 
conduct of the king. In that dark catalogue of crimes, which led our fathers 
to forswear allegiance to the British throne, its refusal to prohibit the slave trade 
to the colonies is made one of the most prominent of those political offences 
which are said to " define a tyrant." In the original draught of the Declara- 
tion of Independence, as prepared by Mr. JefTerson, this crime of King George 
the Third is set forth in the following words : 

'• He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life 
and liberiy in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, cajjiivating and carrying 
iheni into slavery in anoihtr hcmi^jdicre, or to incur mi^cralile death in tlicir transportation thither. 
This piratical warfare, the nppnihritrni of infidel powers, is the warfare of the Chhi.-;tian King of 
Great Britain. Determined to keep a market where MEN should he houghl and sold, he has 
prosiiluicd his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohihit or to restrain this ex- 
ecralile commerce." 

Now, if the king of Great Britian prostituted his negative that slavery might 
not be restricted, w'hat, in after times, shall be said of those who prostitute 
their affirmative, that it may be extended? Yet it is now proposed, in some 
of the state legislatures, and in this capitol, to do precisely the same thing in 
regard to the Territory of Oregon, which was done by Great Britain to her 
transatlantic possessions; not merely to legalize slavery there, but to prohibit 
its inhabitants from prohibiting it. Though three thousand miles west of 
Great Britain, she had certain constitutional rights over us, and could affect our 
destiny. Though the inhabitants of Oregon are three thousand miles west of 
us, yet we have certain constitutional rights over them, and can affect their 
destiny. Great Britain annulled our laws for prohibiting slavery; we propose 
to annul an e-visting law of Oregon prohibiting slavery. If the execrations of 
mankind are yet too feeble and too few to punish Great Britain for her wick- 
edness, what scope, what fulness, what eternity of execration and anathema, 
will be a sufficient retribution upon us, if we volunteer to copy her example ? 
It was in the eighteenth centuiy, when the mother country thus made mer- 
chandise of human beings, — a time when liberty was a forbidden word in the 
languages of Europe. It is in the nineteenth century, that we propose to 
reaiact, and on an ampler scale, the same execrable villany, — a time when 
liberty is the rallying cry of all Christendom. So great has been the progress 
of liberal ideas within the last century, that what was venial at its beginning 
is unjjardonable at its close. To drive coffles of slaves from here to Oregon, 
in the middle of the nineteentli century, is more infamous than it was to bring 
cargoes of slaves from Africa here, in the middle of the eighteenth. Yet such 
is the period that men would select to perpetuate and increase the horrors of 
this traffic. 

Sir, how often, on this floor, have indignant remonstrances been addressed 
to the North, for agitating the subject of slavery ? How often have we at the 
North been told that we were inciting insurrection, fomenting a servile war, put- 
ting the black man's knife to the white man's throat. The air of this hall 
has been filled, its walls have been as it were sculptured, by southern elo- 
Cj^uence, with imacres of devastated towns, of murdered men and ^'-■'— -' 



22 

women; and, as a defence ag-ainst the iniquities of the institution, they hare 
universally put in the plea that the calamity was entailed upon them by the 
mother countr\', that it made a part of the world they were born into, and there- 
fore they could not help it. I have always been disposed to allow its full 
weight to this palliation. But if they now insist upon perpetrating against the 
whole western world, which happens at present to be under our control, the 
same wrongs which, in darker days, Great Britain perpeti'ated against them, 
they will forfeit every claim to sympathy. Sir, here is a test. Let not south- 
ern men, who would now force slaver}' upon new regions, ever deny that their 
slavery at home is a chosen, voluntar}', beloved crime. 

But let us look, sir, at the moral character of slaven,'. It is prop<jsed not 
merely to continue this institution where it now exists, but to extend it to the 
Pacific Ocean, — to spread it over the vast slopes of the Rocky Mountains. 
Sir, the conduct of governments, like the conduct of individuals, is subject to 
the laws and the retributions of Providence. If, therefore, there is any ingre- 
dient of wrong in this institution, we ought not to adopt it, or to pennit it, even 
though it should pour wealth in golden showers over the whole surface of the 
land. In speaking of the moral character of slaver)^ sir, I mean to utter no 
word for the purpose of wounding the feelings of any man. On the other 
hand, I mean not to wound the cause of truth by abstaining from the utterance 
of any word which I ought to speak. 

The institution of slavery is against natural right. Jurists, from the time 
of Justinian ; orators, from the time of Cicero ; poets, from the time of Homer, 
declare it to be wrong. The writers on moral or ethical science, — the expound- 
ers of the law of nations and of God, — denounce slavery as an invasion of the 
rights of man. They find no warrant for it in the eternal principles of justice 
and equity ; and in that great division which they set forth between right and 
wrong, they arrange slavery in the catalogue of Crime. All the noblest in- 
stincts of human nature rebel against it. Whatever has been taught by sage, 
or sung by poet, in favor of freedom, is a virtual condemnation of slaverj'. 
Whenever we applaud the great champions of liberty, w^ho, by the sacrifice of 
life in the cause of freedom, have won the homage of the world and an im- 
mortality of fame, we record the testimony of our hearts against slavery. 
Wherever patriotism and philanthropy have glowed brightest ; wherever piety 
and a devout religious sentiment have burned most fervently, there has been 
the most decided recognition of the universal rights of man. 

Sir, let us analyze this subject, and see if slavery be not the most compact, 
and concentrated, and condensed system of wrong which the depravity of man 
has ever invented. Slavery is said to have had its origin in war. It i>- 
claimed that the captor had a right to take the life of his cajjtive ; and that if 
he spared that life he made it his own, and thus acquired a right to control it. 
1 deny the right of the captor to the life of his captive; and even if this right 
v.-ere conceded, I deny his right to the life of the captive's offspring. But this 
relation between captor and captive precludes the idea of peace ; for no peace 
can be made where there is no free agency. Peace being precluded, it iollows 
inevitably that the state of war continues. Hence, the state of slavery is a 
state of war ; and though active hostilities may have ceased, they are liable to 
break out, and may rightfully break out, at any moment. How long must our 
fallow-citizens, who were enslaved in Algiers, have continued in slavery, before 
they would have lost the right of escape or of resistance ? 

The gentleman from Virginia, [Mr. Bocock,] in his speech this morning, put 
the riglit of the slaveholder upon a somewhat different ground. He said a man 
might acquire property in a horse before the existence of civil society, by catch- 
ing a wild one. And so, he added, one man might acquire property in another 
man, by subduing him to his will. The superior force gave the right, whether 
to the horse or to the man. Now, if this be so, and if at any time the superior 
force should change sides, then it follows inevitably that the relation of the 
parties might be rightfully changed by a new appeal to force. 

The same gentleman claims Bible authority for slavery. He says : " I see 
slavery there tolerated, I had almost said inculcated. I see such language as 



2:j 

this, 'Both thy boiuhneii and thy l»>n(hnai(ls shall ho of the h.-athrMi that 
are round ahout you ; of tlu in shall you buy horidnicn and hondniaids ; and 
ye shall take theln as an inheritance for your children after you, to iidierit 
them for a possession,' " &c. Does not the gentleman know, that hy the yame 
authority, the Israelitish slaves were commanded to despoil their Ei,'^'ptian 
masters, and to escape from hondatre ? Surely the latter is as pood an authority 
as the former. If the nfentleman's argument is sound, he is hound to advocate 
a repeal of the act of 175)13. If the gentleman's argument is sovmd, the free 
States, instead of surrendering fugitive slaves to their masters, arc hound to give 
those masters a Red-sea reception and emhrace ; and the escape of tlu- children of 
Israel into Canaan is a direct precedent for the underground rail-road to Canada. 

Both the gentleman from Kentucky, [Mr. Fi;i;nch,] yesterday, and the gen- 
tleman from Virginia, to-day, spoke repeatedly, and without the sliglitest dis- 
crimination, of a "a slave and a horse," "a slave and a mule," iVc. What 
should we think, sir, of a teacher for our children, or even of a tender of our 
rattle, who did not recognize the difference between men and mules, — between 
humanity and horse-flesh? What should we think, if, on opening a work, 
claiming to be a scientific treatise on zoolo,g}% we should find the author to be 
ignorant of the difference between biped and quadruped, or between men and 
birds, or men and fishes? Yet such errors would be trifling compared 
with those which have been made through all this debate. They would 
be simple errors in natural history, perhaps harmless ; but these are errors, — 
fatal errors, — in humanity and Christian ethics. No, sir; all the legislation 
of the slave States proves that they do not treat, and cannot treat, a human 
being as an animal. I will show that they are ever trjnng to degrade him into 
an animal, although they can never succeed. 

This conscious idea "that the state of slavery is a state of war, — a state in 
which superior force keeps inferior force down, — develops and manifests 
itself perpetually. It exhibits itself in the statute-books of the slave States, 
prohibiting the "education of slaves, making it highly penal to teach them so 
much as the alphabet; dispersing and punishing all meetings where they come 
together in quest of knowledge. Look into the statute-books of the free States, 
and you will find law after law, encouragement after encouragement, to secure 
the diffusion of knowledge. Look into the statute-books of the slave States. 
and you find law after law, penalty after penalty, to secure the extinction of 
knowledge. Who has not read with delight those books which have^ been 
written, "both in England and in this countrjs entitled " The Pursuit of Knowl- 
edge under Difficulties," giving the biographies of illustrious men, who, by an 
undaunted and indomitable spirit, had risen from poverty and obscurity to the 
heights of eminence, and blessed the world with their achievements in litera- 
ture, in science, and in morals ? Vet here, in what we call republican Amer- 
ica, are fifteen great States, vying with each other to see which will bring the 
blackest and most impervious pall of ignorance over three millions of human 
beings ; nay, which can do most to stretch this pall across the continent, from 
the Atlantic to the Pacific. 

Is not knowledge a good ? Is it not one of the most precious bounties which 
the all-bountiful Giver has bestowed upon the human race ? Sir John Her- 
schel, possessed of ample wealth, his capacious mind stored with the treasures 
of knowledge, surrounded by the most learned society in the most cultivated 
metropolis in the world, says : " If I were to pray for a taste which should 
stand me in stead, under every variety of circumstances, and be a source of hap- 
piness and cheerfulness to me through life, and a shield against its ills, how- 
ever things might go amiss, and the world frown upon me, it would be a taste 
for reading." Yet" it is now proposed to colonize the broad regions of the West 
with millions of our fellow-beings, who shall never be able to read a book, or 
write a word ; to whom knowledge shall bring no delight in childhood, no 
relief in the weary hours of sickness or convalescence, no solace in the decrep- 
itude of age ; who shall perceive nothing of the beauties of art, who shall 
know nothing of the wonders of science, who shall ne\-er reach any lofty, intel- 
lectual conception of the attributes of their great Creator; — deaf to all the 



24 

hosannas of praise which nature sings to her Maker; blind in this magnifi- 
cent temple which God has builded. 

Sir, it is one of the noblest attributes of man that he can derive knowledge 
from his predecessors. We possess the accumulated learning of ages. From 
ten thousand confluent streams, the river of truth, widened and deepened, has 
come down to vis ; and it is among our choicest delights, that if we can add to 
its volume, as it rolls on, it will bear a richer freight of blessings to our succes- 
sors. But it is here proposed to annul this beneficent law of nature ; to repel 
this proffered bounty of Heaven. It is proposed to create a race of men, to 
whom all the lights of experience shall be extinguished ; whose hundredth 
generation shall be as ignorant and as barbarous as its first. 

Sir, I hold all voluntary ignorance to be a crime ; I hold all enforced igno- 
rance to be a greater crime. Knowledge is essential to all rational enjoyment ; 
it is essential to the full and adequate performance of every duty. Whoever 
intercepts knowledge, therefore, on its passage to a human soul ; whoever 
strikes down the hand that is outstretched to grasp it, is guilty of one of the 
most heinous of offences. Add to your virtue, knowledge, says the Apostle ; 
but here the command is, be-cloud and be-little by ignorance, whatever virtue 
you may possess. 

Sir, let me justify the earnestness of these expressions, by describing the 
transition of feeling through which I have lately passed. I come from a com- 
munity where knowledge ranks next to virtue, in the classification of blessings. 
On the tenth day of April last, the day before I left home for this place, I at- 
tended the dedication of a schoolhouse in Boston, which had cost S70,000. 
The mayor presided, and much of the intelligence and worth of the city was 
present on the occasion. I see by a paper which I have this day received, that 
another schoolhouse, in the same city, was dedicated on Monday of the present 
week. It was there stated by the mayor, that the cost of the city schoolhouses 
Avhich had been completed within the last three months, was $200,000. On 
Tuesday of this week, a new high schoolhouse in the city of Cambridge was 
dedicated. Mr. Everett, the President of Harvard College, was present, and 
addressed the assembly in a long, and, I need not add, a most beautiful speech. 
That schoolhouse, with two others to be dedicated within a week, will have 
cost 825,000. Last week, in the neighboring city of Charlestown, a new high 
schoolhouse, of a most splendid and costly character, was dedicated by the 
mayor and city government, by clergy and Jaity. But it is not mayors of 
cities, and presidents of colleges alone, that engage in the work of consecrating 
temples of education to the service of the young. Since I have been here, the 
Governor of the Commonwealth, Mr. Briggs, went to Newburyport, a distance 
of forty miles, to attend the dedication of a schoolhouse, which cost 825,000. 
On a late occasion, when the same excellent chief magistrate travelled forty 
miles to attend the dedication of a schoolhouse in the country, some speaker 
congratulated the audience because the governor of the commonwealth had 
come down from the executive chair to honor the occasion. " No," said he, 
" I liave come up to the occasion to be honored by it." Within the last year, 
8200,000 have been given by individuals to Harvard College. Within a little 
longer time than this, the other two colleges in the State have received, to- 
gether, a still larger endowment, from individuals or the State. 

Tiiese measures are part of a great system which we are carrying on for the 
elevation of the race. Last year, the voters of Massachusetts, in their respec- 
tive towns, voluntarily ta.xed themselves about a million of dollars for the sup- 
port of Common Schools. We have an old law on the statute-book, requiring 
towns to tax themselves for the support of public schools ; but the people have 
long since lost sight of this law in the munificence of their contributions. 
Massachusetts is now erecting a reform school for vagrant and exposed chil- 
dren, — so many of whom come to us from abroad, — which will cost the State 
more than a hundred thousand dollars. An unknown individual has given 
twenty thousand dollars towards it. We educate all our deaf and dumb and 
blind. An appropriation was made by the last Legislature to establish a school 
for idiots, in imitation of those beautiful institutions in Paris, in Switzerland, 



and in Berlin, wliere tlie most revolting imd malicious of this deplomble clafis 
aro tamed into docility, made lovers of order and neatness, and capaMe of per- 
forming many valuable services. The future teacher of this school is now 
abroad, preparin<:^ himself for his work. A few years airo, ]\Ir. Everett, the 
present Presiilent of Harvard College, then Governor of the Conunoiiwealth, 
spoke the deep convictions of ^Massachusetts j)eople, when, in a public addresii 
on Education, he exhorted the fathers and mothers of Massachusetts in the 
following words: " Save," said he, "save, spare, scrape, stint, starve, do any- 
thing but steal," to educate your children. And Doctor Ilowe, the noble- 
hearted director of the Institution for the Blind, latidy nttered tiie deej)est sen- 
timents of our citizens, when, in speaking of our duties to the blind, the deaf 
and dumb, and the idiotic, he said : " The sight of any human being left to ^-l^ 
brutish ignorance is always demoralizing to the beholders. There floats not upon 
the stream of life a wreck of humanity so utterly shattered and cripjiled, but 
that its signals of distress should cliallenge attention and command assistance." 

Sir, it was all glowing and fer\'id with sentiments like these, that, a few 
weeks ago, I entered this House, — sentiments transfused into my soul from 
without, even if I had no vital spark of nobleness to kindle them within. Im- 
agine, then, my strong revulsion of feeling, when the first set, elaborate speech 
which I heard, was that of the gentleman from Virginia, proposing to extend 
ignorance to the uttermost bounds of this Republic, — to legalize it, to enforce 
it, to necessitate it, and make it eternal. Since him, manj' others have advo- 
cated the same abhorrent doctrine. Not satisfied with dooming a whole race 
of our fellow-beings to mental darkness, impervious and everlasting, — not sat- 
isfied with drawing this black curtain of ignorance between man and nature, 
between the human soul and its God, from the Atlantic to the Rio Grande, 
across half the continent, — they desire to increase this race ten, twenty mil- 
lions more, and to unfold and spread out this black curtain across the other 
half of the continent. When, sir, in the halls of legislation, men advocate meas- 
ures like this, it is no figure of speech to say, that their words are the clankings 
of multitudinous fetters ; each gesture of their arms tears human flesh with ten 
thousand whips ; each exhalation of their breath spreads clouds of moral dark- 
ness from horizon to horizon. 

Twenty years ago, a sharp sensation ran through the nerves of the civilized 
world, at the story of a young man named Caspar Hauser, found in the city of 
Nuremberg, in Bavaria. Though sixteen or seventeen years of age, he could 
not walk nor talk. He heard without understanding ; he saw without perceiv- 
ing ; he moved without definite purpose. It was the soul of an infant in the 
body of an adult. After he had learned to speak, he related that, from his 
earliest recollection, he had always been kept in a hole so small, that he could 
not stretch out his limbs, where he saw no light, heard no sound, nor even 
witnessed the face of the attendant who brought him his scanty food. For 
many years conjecture was rife concertiing his history, and all Germany was 
searched to discover his origin. After a long period of fruitless inquiry and 
speculation, public opinion settled down into the belief that he was the victim 
of some great unnatural crime; that he was the heir to some throne, and had 
be.m sequestered by ambition ; or the inheritor of vast wealth, and had been 
hidden away by cupidity ; or the ofTspring of criminal indulirence, and had 
b^-en buried alive to avoid exposure and shame. A German, Von Feuerbach, 
published an account of Caspar, entitled " The Example of a Crime on the 
Li;b of the Soul." But why go to Europe to be thrilled with the pathos of a 
h;i nan being shrouded from the light of nature, and cut off from a knowledge 
of duty and of God? To-day, in this boasted land of light and liberty, there 
are ihrec million Caspar Hausers ; and, as if this were not enough, it is pro- 
posed to multiply their number tenfold, and to fill up all the western world with 
these proofs of human avarice and guilt. It is proposed that we ourselves 
should create, and should publish to the world, not one, but untold millions 
of" Examples of a Crime o7i the Life of the Soul.''' It is proposed that the 
self-styled freemen, the self-styled Christians, of fifteen great states in this 
American Union, shall engage in the work of procreating, rearing, and seUiyig 
4 



26 

Caspar Hausers, often from their own loins ; and if any further development 
of soul or of body is allowed to the American victims than was permitted to 
the Bavarian child, it is only because such development will increase their 
market value at the barracoons. It is not from any difference of motive, but 
only the better to insure that motive's indulgence. The slave child must be 
allowed to use his limbs, or how could he drudge out his life in the service 
of his master? The slave infant must be taught to walk, or how, under 
the shadow of this thrice glorious Capitol, could he join a coffle for New 
Orleans ? 

I know, sir, that it has been said, within a short time past, that Caspar 
Hauser was an impostor, and his story a fiction. Would to God that this 
could ever be said of his fellow-victims in America ! 

For another reason slavery is an unspeakable wrong. The slave is debarred 
from testifying against a white man. The courts will not hear him as a wit- 
ness. By the principles of the common law, if any man suffers violence at 
the hands of another, he can prefer his complaint to magistrates, or to the 
grand juries of the courts, who are bound to give him redress. Hence 
the law is said to hold up its shield before every man for his protection. It 
surrounds him in the crowded street and in the solitary place. It guards his 
treasures with greater vigilance than locks or iron safes ; and against medi- 
tated aggressions upon himself, his wife or his children, it fastens his doors 
every night, more securely than triple bolts of brass. But all these sacred 
protections are denied to the slave. While subjected to the law of force, he 
is shut out from the law of right. To suffer injury is his, but never to obtain 
redress. For personal cruelties, for stripes that shiver his flesh, and blows 
that break his bones, for robbery or for murder, neither he nor his friends can 
have preventive,remedy or recompense. The father, who is a slave, may see 
son or daughter scored, mangled, mutilated or ravished before his eyes, and 
he must be dumb as a sheep before its shearers. The wife may be dishon- 
ored in the presence of the husband, and, if he remonstrates or rebels, the 
miscreant who could burn with the lust, will burn not less fiercely with a ven- 
geance to be glutted upon his foiler. 

Suppose, suddenly, by some disastrous change in the order of nature, an 
entire kingdom or community were to be enveloped in total darkness, — to 
have no day, no dawn, but midnight evermore ! Into what infinite forms of 
violence and wrong would the depraved passions of the human heart spring 
up, when no longer restrained by the light of day, and the dangers of expo- 
sure ! So far as legal rights against his oppressors are concerned, the slave 
lives in such a world of darkness. A hundred of his fellows may stand 
around him and witness the wrongs he suffers, but not one of them can appeal 
to jury, magistrate, or judge, for punishment or redress. The wickedest 
white man, in a companv of slaves, bears a charmed life. There is not one 
of the fell passions that rages in his bosom which he cannot indulge with 
wantonness, and to satiety, and the court has no ears to hear the complaint of 
the victim. How dearly does every honorable man prize character! The 
law denies the slave a character : for, however traduced, legal vindication is 
impossible. 

And yet, infinitely flagrant as the anomaly is, the slave is amenable to the 
laws of the land for all offences which he may commit against others, though 
he is powerless to protect himself by the same law from offences which others 
may commit against him. He may suffer all wrong, and the courts will not 
hearken to his testimony ; but for the first wrong he does, the same courts 
inflict their severest punishments upon him. This is the reciprocity of slave 
law, — to be forever liable to be proved guilty, but never able to prove him- 
self innocent ; to be subject to all punishments, but through his own oath, to 
no protection. Hear what is said by the highest judicial tribunal of South 
Carolina: ''Although slaves are held to be the absolute property of their 
owners, yet they have the power of committing crimes." — '2d Nott and 
McCurd's Rep., p. 179. A negro is so far amenable to the common law, that 
he may be one of three to constitute the number necessary to make a viot. — 



27 

Is^ Bai/s Rep., 358. By tlie laws of the same State, a nc<^ro may he himself 
stolen and he has no redress; but if he steals a nepro from another, he shall 
he hnn;,'-. — 2d Not t and McCord's Rep., 179. [A?i exniuplr of this pmnlty 
si/Jfcrrd hij a slave.\ This is the way that slave leii^islaturcs and slave judica- 
tories construe the command of Christ, " Whatsoever ye would that men 
should do unto you, do ye also the same unto them." TSay, liy the laws of 
some of the slave States, where master and slave are eng'ac^ed in a joint act, 
tin; slave is indictable, while the master is not. 

What rights are more sacred or more dear to us than the conju(;al aiui the 
pin^ntal ? No savage nation, however far removed from the frontiers of civ- 
iii/alion, has ever yet been discovered, where these rights were unknown or 
nnhonored. The beasts of the forest feel and respect them. It is only in the 
land of slaves that they are blotted out and annihilated. 

Slavery is an unspeakable wrong to the conscience. The word "con- 
science" conveys a complex idea. It includes conscientiousness; that is, the 
sentiment or instinct of right and wrong; and also intelligence, which is the 
guide of this sentiment. Conscience, then, implies both the desire or impulse 
to do right, and also a knowledge of what is right. Nature endows us with 
tlio sentiment, but the knowledge we must acquire. Hence we speak of an 
" enlightened conscience," meaning thereby not only the moral sense, but that 
knowledge of circumstances, relations, tendencies and results, which is neces- 
sary in order to guide the moral sense to just conclusions. Each of these 
elements is equally necessary to enable a man to feel right and to act right. 
Mere knowledge, without the moral sense, can take no cognizance of the 
everlasting distinctions between right and wrong, and so the blind instinct, 
unguided by knowledge, will be forever at fault in its conclusions. The two 
were made to coexist and operate together, by Him who made the human 
soul. But the impious hand of man divorces these twin-capacities, wherever 
it denies knowledge. If one of these coordinate powers in the mental realm 
be annulled by the Legislature, it may be called law; but it is repugnant to 
every law and attribute of God. 

But, not satisfied with having invaded the human soul, and annihilated one 
of its most sacred attributes, in the persons of three millions of our fellow- 
men ; not satisfied with having killed the conscience, as far as it can be killed 
by human device, and human force, in an entire race ; we are now invoked 
to multiply that race, to extend it over regions yet unscathed by its existence, 
and there to call into being other millions of men, upon whose souls, and upon 
tlie souls of whose posterity, the same unholy spoliation shall be committed 
forever. 

Slavery is an unspeakable wrong to the religious nature of man. The 
dearest and most precious of all human rights is the right of private judgment 
ill matters of religion. I am interested in nothing else so much as in the attri- 
butes of my Creator, and in the relations which he has established between 
me and Himself, for time and for eternity. To investigate for myself these 
relations, and their momentous consequences; to " search the Scriptures;" to 
explore the works of God in the outward and visible universe; to ask counsel 
of the sages and divines of the ages gone by, — these are rights which it would 
be sacrilege in me to surrender; which it is worse sacrilege in any human 
being or human government to usurp. Yet, by denying education to the 
slave, you destroy not merely the right but the poicer of personal examination 
in regard to all that most nearly concerns the soul's interests. Who so base 
as not to reverence the mighty champions of religious freedom, in days when 
the dungeon, the rack, and the fagot, were the arguments of a government 
theology ? Who docs not reverence, I sny, Wicklitie, Huss, Luther, and the 
whole army of martyrs whose blood reddened the axe of English intolerance? 
Yet it was only for this right of private judgment; for this independence of 
another man's control, in religious concernments, that the godlike champions 
of religious liberty perilled themselves and perished. Yet it is this very 
religious despotism over millions of men, which it is now proposed, not to 
destroy, but to create. It is proposed not to break old fetters and cast them 



28 

away, but to forge new ones and rivet them on. Sir, on the continent of 
Europe, and in the Tower of London, I have seen the axes, the chains, and 
other horrid implements of death, by which the great defenders of freedom for 
the soul were brought to their final doom, — by which political and religious 
liberty was cloven down ; but fairer and lovelier to the view were axe and 
chain, and all the ghastly implements of death ever invented by religious big- 
otry or civil despotism to wring and torture freedom out of the soul of inan ; — 
fairer and lovelier were they all than the parchment roll of this House on which 
shall be inscribed a law for profaning one additional foot of American soil 
with the curse of slavery. [Here the chairman's hammer announced the 
close of the hour. Mr. Mann had but one topic more which he designed to 
elucidate, — the inevitable tendency of slavery to debase the standard both of 
private and of public morals in any community where it exists.] 



After the above speech was delivered, I was referred to a Tract, written by a Virginian, 
on the subject of slavery ; and, by the politeness of its author, I have since obtained a copy 
of it. It is entitled, "Address to the People of West Virginia ; showing that slavery is injurious 
to the public welfare, and that it may be gradually abolished, without detriment to the rights and 
interests of slaveholders. By a Slaveholder of West Virginia. Lexington: R.C.Noel. 
1847." This Address was written by the Rev. Henry Ruffner, D. D., President of Lexing- 
ton College, Lexington, Va. Some of the passages of this Address are so striking ; it is 
throughout so corroborative of one of the arguments contained in the Speech ; and, coming 
as it does, from a Virginian, an eye-witness of the effects of slavery, and a holder of slaves, 
that I have thought it would be useful to append them to this revised and corrected edition of 
the Speech. The extracts, of course, are not, as here, consecutive. 

H. M. 

West Newton, Sept. 1, 1848. 



" Nowhere, since time began, have the two sj'stems of slave lahor and free labor been subjected 
to so fair and so decisive a trial of their etlects on public prosperity, as in these United Slates. 
Here the two systems have worked side by side for ages, under such equal circumstances, both 
political and physical, and with such ample'time and opportunity for each to work out its proper 
effects, that all must admit the experiment to be now complete, and the result decisive. No man 
of common sense, who has observed this result, can doubt for a moment, that the system of free 
labor promotes the growth aud ])rosperity of States in a much higher degree than the system of 
slave lalior. In the first setllemonl of a country, when labor is scarce and dear, slavery may give 
a temporary impulse to imjirovement ; but even' this is not the case, except in warm climates, and 
where free men are scarce and either sickly or lazy ; and when we have said this, we have said all 
that experience in the United States v/arra'nts us to sav, in favor of the policy of employing slave 
labor. 

It is the common remark of all who have travelled through the United States, that the free States 
and the slave Stales exhibit a striking contrast in iheir appearance. In the older free Slates are 
seen all the tokens of prosperity ; — a dense and increasing population ; thriving villages, towns and 
cities ; a neat and productive agriculture, growing manufactures, and active commerce. 

In the older parts of the slave Slates, — with a few local exceptions, — are seen, on the contrary, 
too evident signs of stagnation, or of positive decay ; — a sparse population, a slovenly cidtivation 
spread over vast fields that are wearing out, among others already worn out and desolate ; villages 
and towns, " few and far lielwecn," rarely growing, often decaying, sometimes mere remnants of 
what they were, sometimes deserted ruins, haunted only i)y owls ; generally no manufactures, nor 
even trades, except the indispensable few ; commerce and navigation abandoned, as far as possilde, 
to tlie peo|)le of the free Stales ; and generally, instead of the stir and hustle of industry, a dull and 
dreamy sulbicss, hroken, if broken at all, oidy liy the wordy brawl of jjoliiics. 

New En:;land and the middle Slates of New' York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, contained 
in 1790, l,9r,-!,ii(in inlialiitanls, and in IS-lo, G,7iio,(ioi) ; having gained, in this period. 243 per cent. 

The four old slave Stales had in 1790 a population of l,-17;i,i)U(), and in 1S40, of 3.279,000 ; hav- 
ing gained, in the same period, 122 per cent., just about half as much, in proportion, as the free 
States. They ougiil to have gained ahout twice as nnuh ; for they had at first only seven inhab- 
itants to the square mile, when the free Slates not only had upwards of twelve, but,' on the whole, 
much inferior advantages of soil and climate. Even cold, barren New Kngland, though more than 
twice as thi( kly peo|)led, grew in pop\dation at a faster rale than these old slave Slates. 

About half till! territory of tliese old slave States is new country, and has comparatively few 
slaves. On this part the increase of population has chiefly taken place. On the old slave-laiiored 
lowlands, a singular phenomenon has appeared ; there, within the bounds of these rapidly grow- 



29 

Ini? United Stales, — yes, there, pnpiilntioii has been Ion? at a stand ; yes, over wide rcifions, — 
esiiocially in Vir^'inia, — it lias declined, and a new wilderness is irninintr uiHjn the eultivati-d land ! 
\V lint has done this work ol'desuiatioii .' Not war, nor |)esi Hence ; not ojjpression of rulers, ci»ii 
or ecclesiastical ; liiit slurery, a curse more deslriiclive in its etl<>cls than any of theni. It were 
liurd to tind, in old kiiii;-ridden, priest-ridden, overtaxed Kuropc, srt lar'.'c a coiiniry, where, within 
twenty years past, siicli a tfrowini,- jiovcrly and desolation liiive apj)eare<l. 

It is ill the last iieriod often vears, Iroiii l^Mll to Isio, ihat tins consiiiiiin^ plaijiic of slaverv has 
shown ils worst edi'cls in the ofd Soiillurn States. Iiuliidini,' the increase in their newly settled 
and Western counties, they jjaineil in popnlation only 7 1 -v! |)cr cent. ; while cold, tiarri'ii, thickly 
peopled i\ew i^iii>laiid trained 15, and llie old middle Slates, •_'(> per cent. East Virpinia actually 
fell oil' 20, 000 in |Mipiila(ion : and, with the e.xcepiion of Hichmond and one fir two other towns, her 
po|iiilalion coiiliiiiies to decline. Old Virginia was the tirst 10 sow this land of ours with slavery ; 
she is also the lirst to reap the full harvest of destruction. Her lowland neiijhliors of IM:ir\land 
and the Caroliiias were not far heliind al the seeding-; nor are they far hehind at the ingathering 
of desolation. 

Let us take the rich and iicautiful State of Kentucky, compared with her free neiqhiior Ohio. 
The slaves of Kentucky have comooscd less than a loiirtli jmrl of her po]iulatioii. But mark their 
etfeci upon the com))arative tjrowth of the Slate. In the year isiio, Kentucky contained 221, uno 
inhaliitanis, and Ohio, lo.ood. In forty years, the poiiulation of Kentucky had risen to 78o,uoo ; 
that of Ohio to l,"il'.),0O0. This wonderrul ditlereiice could not lie owini^ to any natural superiority 
of the Ohio country. Kentucky is nearly as lariie, nearly as fertile, «nd quite equal in other t'ifls 
of nature. She had i;reaily the advantage too in the oul.set of this forty years' race of population. 
She started with 5 1-2 iiihaliilants to the square mile, and came out willii20: Ohio started with one 
inhaliitaiit to the square mile, and came out with y-<. Kentucky had full ])ossession of her territory 
at the hesjinning. Aliich of Ohio was then, and for a loiii; lime afierwanis, in possession of the 
Indians. Ohio is hy this time coiisideralily more than twice as thickly peopled as Kentucky ; yet 
she still gains, both hy natural increase anil by the intiux of emigrants ; while Kentucky lias for 
twenty years been receiving much fewer emigrants than Ohio, and multitudes of her citizens have 
been yearly moving ofl'to newer and yet newer countries. 

Compare this natural increase with the census returns, and it appears that in the ten years from 
lS:iO to 1840, Virginia lost by emigration no fewer than 375,000 of her people, of whom' East Vir- 
ginia lost 304,000 and West Virginia 71,000. At this rate Virginia supplies the West every ten 
years with a population equal in number to the population of the Stale of Mississippi in 1840.' 

Some Virginia politicians proudly, — yes, proudly, fellow-citizens, — call our old Commonwealth, 
The Mother of Slates .' These cn'lighlcvcd patriots might pay her a still higher compliment, by 
calling her The Grandmother of Stales. For our part, we are grieved and inorlified, to think of 
the lean and haggard condition of our venerable mother. Her black children have sucked her so 
dry, that now, for a long time past, she has not milk enough for her offspring, either black or 
while. ' ' 

She has sent, — or we should rather sav, she has driven, — from her soil, at least one third of all 
the emigrants who have gone from the old States lo the new. More than another third have gone 
from the other old slave States. Many of these multitudes, who have left the slave Stales, have 
shunned the regions of slavery, and settled in the free countries of the West. These were gener- 
ally industrious and enterprising white men, who found, bv sad experience, that a country of slaves 
was not the country for them. It is a truth, a certain truth, that slavery drives free laborers,— 
farmers, mechanics, and all, and some of the best of them too, — out of the country, andflls their 
])Liccs irith negroes. 

It is ailmitted on all hands, that slave labor is better adapted lo agriculture than to any other 
branch of industry ; and that, if not good for agriculture, it is really ffood for nothing. 

Therefore, since in agriculture slave latior is proved to be far less productive than free labor, 
slarrry is demonstrated lo be not only unprnf table, but deeply injurious to the public prosperity. 

We do not mean that slave laborcan never earn anything for him that employs it. The question 
is between free labor and slave labor. He that chooses lo employ a sort of labor that yields only 
half as much to the hand as another sort would yield, makes a choice that is not only unprofitable 
but deeply injurious to his interest. ' j r > 

.\irriciilture in the slave Slates may be characterized in general by two epithets, extensive, ex- 
ha u.stii-c, — which in all agriculiurarcountries forebode two things, impoverishmejU, depopulation. 
The general system of slavelioldiiig farmers and nlanlers, in all times and places, has been, and 
now is, and ever will be, to cultivate much lamf, badly, for present gain, — in short, to kill the 
goose that lays the golden egg. They cannot do otherwise with laborers who\vork by compulsion, 
lor the benefit only of their inasters ; and whose sole interest in the matter is, to do as little and lo 
consume as much as possible. 

This ruinous system of large farms cultivated by slaves showed its effects in Italy, 1 SCO years 
ago. when the Roman empire was at the heisjhl of ils sirandeur. 

l'liny,a writer of ihal age, in his Natural History, (Book IS, ch. 1—7,) tells us, that while the 
small larms of former times were cultivated by freemen, and even great commanders did not dis- 
dain to labor with their own hands, agriculture flourished, and provisions were abundant ; but that 
afterwards, when the lands were engrossed by a few great proprieiois.and cultivated by fettered and 
branded slaves, the country was ruined, aiid corn had lo be imported. The same system was 
spreading ruin over the provinces, and thus the prosperity of the empire was undermined. Pliny 
denounces as the worst of all, the system of having large estates in the country cultivated by slaves, 
or indeed, savs he, " to hare anything done by men who labor icithoul hope of reward." 

So Livy, the great Roman historian, observed, some vears before Pliny, (Book 6, ch. 12 ) that 
" innumerable multitudes of men formerly inhabited those parts of Italy, where, in his time', none 
but slaves redeemed the country from desertion ;" — that is, a dense population of free laborers had 
been succeeded by a sparse population of slaves. 

Even the common mechanical trades do not flourish in a slave State. Some mechanical opera- 
tions must, indeed, be jierformed in everv civilized country ; but the general rule in the South is 
to import from abroad every fabricated thing that can be carried in ships, such as household furni- 
ture, boats, boards, laths, carts, ploughs, axes, and axehclves, besides innumerable other things, 
which free communities are accustomed to make for themselves. What is most wonderful is, that 
the forests and iron-inines of the South supply, in great part, the materials out of which these 



30 

things are made. The Northern freemen cnme witli their ships, earn,' home the timber and pia;- 
iron, work ihem up, supply their own wants witii a part, and then sell tlie rest at a good profit in 
the Southern markets. Now, although mechanics, hy setting up their shops in the Soutn, could 
save all these freights and profits ; yet so it is, that Northern mechanics will not settle in the South, 
and the Southern mechanics are undersold hy their Northern competitors. 

Now connect with these wonderful facts another fact, and the mystery is solved. The number 
of meclianics, in diiferent parts of the South, is in the inverse ratio of the number of slaves ; or in 
other words, where the slaves form the largest pro])ortion of tbe inhabitants, there the mechanics 
and manuliicturers form the least. In those parts only where the slaves are comparatively few, are 
many mechanics and artificers to be found ; but even in these j)arts they do nut flourish as the 
same useful class of men flouiish in the free States. Even in our Valley of Virginia, remote from 
the sea, manv of our mechanics can hardly stand against Northern competition. This can be 
attributed only to slavery, which paralyzes our energies, disperses our population, and keeps us few 
and poor, in spite of the bountiful gifts of nature, with which a benign Providence has endowed our 
country. 

Of all the States in this Union, not one has on the whole such various and al)undant resources for 
manufacturing, as our own Virginia, both East and West. Only think of her vast forests of tim- 
ber, her mountains of iron, her regions of stone coal, her valleys of limestone and marble, her foun- 
tains of salt, her immense sheep-walks for wool, her vicinity to the cotton fields, her innumerable 
waterfalls, her bays, harbors and rivers for circulating products on every side ; — in short, every 
material and every convenience necessary i'or manufacturing industry. 

Above all, tliiuli of Richmond, nature's chosen site for the greatest manufaclurinK city in America 

— her lieds of coal and iron, just at hand — her incomjjarable water-power — her tide water naviga- 
tion, conducting sea vessels from the foot of her falls, — and above them her fine canal to the moun- 
tains, through which lie the shortest routes from the Eastern tides to the great rivers of the West 
and tlie South west. Think also that this Richmond, in old Virginia, "the mother of States," has 
enjoyed these unparalleled advantages ever since the United States became a nation ; — and then 
think again, that this same Richmond, the metropolis of all Virginia, has fewer manufactures than 
a third rate New England town ; — fewer — not than tbe new city of Lowell, which is beyond all 
comparison, — but fewer than the obscure place called Fall River, among the barren hillsof ]\Iassa- 
chusetts ; — and then, fellow-citizens, what will you think, — what must you think, — of the cause of 
this strange phenomenon ? Or, to enlarge the scope of the question : What must you think has 
caused Virginians in general to neglect their superlative advantages for manufacturing industry- ? 

— to disregard the evident suggestions of nature, pointing out to them this fruitful source of popu- 
lation, wealth and comfort ? 

Say not that this state of things is chargeable to the apathy of Virginians. That is nothing to 
the purpose, for it does not go to the bottom of the subject. What causes the apathy ? That is 
the question. 

The last census gave also the cost of constructing new buildings in each State, exclusive of the 
value of the materials. The amount of this is a good test of the increase of wealth in a country. 
To compare different States in this particular, we must divide the total cost of building by the 
number of inhabitants, and see what the average will be for each inhabitant. We find that it is in 
Massachusetts, S3 GO cents ; in Connecticut, S3 50 cents ; in New York, S3 00 ; in New Jersey, 
82 70 cents; in Pennsylvania, $3 10 cents; in Maryland, S2 30 cents; and in Virginia, 81 10 
cents. 

No State has greater conveniencies for ship navigation and ship building than Virginia. Yet 
on all her fine tide waters, she has little shipjiing ; and what she has is composed almost wholly 
of small bay craft and a few coasting schooners. 

We do not blame our Southern people for abstaining from all employments of this kind. What 
could they do? Set their negroes to building ships'? Whoever imagined such an absurdity.' 
But could they not hire white men to do such things ? No ; for in the first place, Southeni white 
men have no skill in such matters ; and in the second place. Northern workmen cannot be hired 
in the South, without receiving a heavy premium for working in a slave State. 

The boast of our West Virginia is the good city of Wheeling. Would that she was six times 
as large, that she might equal Pittsburg, and that she q^rew five times as fast, that she might keep 
up with her ! 

We glory in Wheeling, because she only, in Virginia, deserves to be called a manufacturing 
town. For this her citizens deserve to be crowned, — not with laurel. — but wiih the solid g^old of 
prosperity. But how came it, that Wheeling, and next to her. VVellsburg, — of all the towns in 
Virginia, — should become manufacturing towns ? Answer: They breathe the atmosphere of i'ree 
States, almost touching them on both sides. But again ; seeing that Wheeling, as a seat for 
manufactures, is equal to Pittsburg, and inferior to no town in .\iiierica, except Richmond ; and 
that, moreover, she has almost no slaves ; why is Wheeling so far behind Piitsburg, and compara- 
tively so slow in her growth? — Answer: She is in a country in which slavery is established by 
law. 

We shall explain, by examples, how a few slaves in a country may do its citizens more imme- 
diate injury than a large number. 

When a white family own fifty or one hundred slaves, they can, so long as their land produces 
well, afford to be indolent and expensive in their habits ; for though each yields only a small profit, 
vet each member of the family has ten or fifteen nf these black work-animals to toil for his support. 
it is not until the fields grow old, and the crops srrow shori, and the necrrocs and ihe overseer take 
nearly all, that the day of ruin can be no longer ])osti)oned. If the family be not ivti/ indolent and 
rcry expensive, this inevitable day may not <«)me defore the third generation. But the ruin of 
small slaveholders is often accomplished in a single life-lime. 

When a white family own five or ten slaves, they cannot afford to be indolent and expensive in 
their habits ; for one black drudge cannot support one while gentleman or lady, ^'et, because 
they are slaveholders, this family will feel some aspirations lor a life of easy sjentility ; and because 
field work and kitchen work arc negroes' v.'ork, the vouiisr gentlemen will' dislike to go with the 
negroes to dirty field work, 'uid the' young ladies wilf dislike to join the black sluts in anv sort of 
household labor. Such uiiihriliy sentiments are the natural consequence of introducing slaves 
among the families of a country ; especially negro slaves. They infallibly grow and spread, cre- 
ating among the white families a distaste for all servile labor, and a desire to procure slaves who 



31 

may take ull drudgery off their hands. Tims tjcneral industry ?ivcs way ly dcprecs to indolent 
relaxation, false notions of dii;nitv and rcliiienient, and a lasle for fashionalije luxuries. Then 
debts slyly uiruinulute. The result is, that many families are coni|)i'lle(l l.y tluir fnd>arrHsxnients 
to sell o'tt'iind leave the country. Many who are unaMe to huy slaves leave it also, heeause they 
feel dei^rnded, and eannot jirospr, where slavery e.xists. Cili/ens of the \'allrv ! Is it not so '.' 
Is not this the chief reason why your lieautiluleountry does not prosper like the Northern Valleys .' 

We have examined the census of counties for the last thirty or forty years, in ]\!arylan(l, Vir- 
ginia and North Carolina, with the view to discover the law of population in the Nor'tliern slave 
Stales. The following are anions; the ceneraJ results. 

When a county hud at lirsi comparatively few slaves, the slave population, except nciir the free 
iKirders, sjained upon the whites, and most rapidly in the older parts of the country. 

The |H)]udatiou, as a whole, increased so long as the slaves were fewer than the whites, hut 
more slowly as the nundiers approached to equality. In our Valley, a smaller proportion of slaves 
had the effect of a larger one in East Virginia, to retard the increase of population. 

When the slaves became as numerous as the whites in the Eastern and older parts of the coun- 
try, population came to a stand ; when they outnumbered the whites, it declined. Conse(pieiitlv, 
the slave population has tended to diffuse itself equally over the country, rising more rapidly as It 
was further lielow the white iiojiulation, and going down when it had risen above them. 

The price of cotton has regulated the price of negroes in Virginia ; and so it must continue to 
do ; because slave labor is unorofitable here, and nothing keeps up the price of slaves but their value 
as a marketable commodity in the South. Eastern negroes and Western cattle are alike in this, 
that, if the market abroad go down or be dosed, — both sorts of animals, the horned and the woolly- 
headed, become a worthless drug at home. The fact is, that our Eastern brethren must send off, 
on any terms, the increase of their slaves, because their inuxiverished country cannot sustain even 
its present stock of negroes. We join not the English ancf American abolition cry about " slave- 
breedinc." in East Virginia, as if it were a chosen occupation, and therefore a reproachful one. It 
is no such thin?, but a case of dire necessity, and many a heartache does it cost the good people 
there. Hut, behold in the East the doleful consequences of letting slavery grow up to an o))i)res- 
•sivc and heart-sickening burden upon a community ! Cast it off, West Virginians, whilst yet you 
have the power; for if you let it descend unbroken to your children, it will have grown to a moun- 
tain of misery upon their heads. 

Good policy will require the Southern States, ere long, to close their markets against iNorthem 
negroes. When the Southern slave market is closed, or when, by the reduced profits of slave labor 
in the South, it becomes "kitted ; — then the stream of Virginia negroes, heretofoie pouring dowr 
upon the Stiuth, will be thrown hack upon the State, and like a river dammed up, must spread 
itself over the whole territory of the commonwealth. The head spring in East Virginia cannot 
contain itself ; it must find vent ; it will shed its black streams through every gap of the Blue 
Ridge and pour over the Alleghany, till it is checked bv abolitionism on the borders. But even 
abolitionism cannot finally stop it. Abolitionism itself will tolerate slavery, when slaveholders 
grow sick and tired of it. 

In plain terms, fellow-citizens. Eastern slaveholders will come with their multitudes of slaves to 
settle upon the fresh lands of West Virginia. Eastern slaves will be sent by thousands for a mar- 
ket in VVest Virginia. Every valley will echo with the cry, " Negroes ! Negroes for sale ! Dog 
cheap I Do" cheap !" And because they are dog cheap, many of our people will buy them. We 
ha\ e shown now slavery has prepared the people for this ; how a little slavery- makes way for more, 
and how the law of slave-increase operates to fill up every part of the country to the same level 
with slaves. 

And then, fellow-citizens, when you have suffered your country to be filled with negro slaves 
instead of white freemen ; when its "population shall be as motley as Joseph's coat of many colors ; 
as ting-streaked and speclcled as fattier Jacob's flock was in Padan Aram ; — what will tlie while 
basis of representation avail you, if you obtain it? W^hether you obtain it or not, East Virginia 
will have triumphed ; or rather slavery will have triumphed, and all Virginia will have become a 
land of darkness and of the shadow offleath. 

Then, by a forbearance which has no merit, and a supineness which has no excuse, you will have 
given to yoiir children, for their inheritance, this lovely land blackened with a negro population, — 
the offscourings of Eastern Virginia, — the fag-end of slavery, — the loathsome dregs of that cup of 
abomination, which has already sickened to death the Eastern half of our commonwealth. 

Delay not, then, we beseech you, to raise a barrier against this Stvgian inundation, — to stand at 
the Blue Ridge, and with sovereign energy say to this B/ack Sea of misery, "Hitherto shall thou 
come, and no further." 




NOTICE. 

The decided approbation with which this remarkable speech has been welcomed, not 
only by citizens of every party in the Free States, but by intelligent and candid men in 
the Slave States, has induced the subscriber to print this revised and improved edition, 
in better style, and in larger type, than any previous edition. The price is fixed at only 
five dollars a hundred, in the hope that the friends of freedom, and all lovers of our com- 
mon country, will unite in giving this calm, candid, and unanswerable argument an 
extensive circulation. A few copies have been printed on fine paper, with covers. 

Orders are respectfully solicited by the Publisher. 

Wm. B. Fowle. 



■;'-'';:.;f.V)k;i';li 






'''•■'■v^r-'r'it;-:':::!! 






V'v '0' :;,!;!M1 






■■I ' 



|-vV.';V:l"i';i: 






LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



011 464 374 9 









■'■■ IB 











p^.' 

. 






